Re: JOINING Post and On measure alteration mechanisms and other practical tests for COMP

[Bruno Marchal]

On 15 Jan 2012, at 00:17, Russell Standish wrote:


On Sat, Jan 07, 2012 at 07:02:52AM +0200, acw wrote:

On 1/6/2012 18:57, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 05 Jan 2012, at 11:02, acw wrote:


Thanks for replying. I was worried my post was too big and few
people will bother reading it due to size. I hope to read your
opinion on the viability of the experiment I presented in my
original post.


Any chance you could break it up into smaller digestible pieces?


That would be good idea. read it twice, and generate too much comments  
in my head, and none seems to address the point. Now i am more busy,  
so acw will need to be patient I grasp his idea.












To Bruno Marchal:

Do you plan on ever publishing your thesis in english? My french  
is a

bit rusty and it would take a rather long time to walk through it,
however I did read the SANE and CC&Q papers, as well as a few  
others.


I think that SANE is enough, although some people pushes me to  
submit to
some more public journal. It is not yet clear if physicist or  
logician
will understand. Physicists asks the good questions but don't have  
the

logical tools. Logicians have the right tools, but are not really
interested in the applied question. By tradition modern logicians
despise their philosophical origin. Some personal contingent  
problems

slow me down, too. Don't want to bore you with this.


If it's sufficient, I'll just have to read the right books to better
understand AUDA, as it is now, I understood some parts, but also had
trouble connecting some ideas in the AUDA.

Maybe I should write a book. There is, on my url, a long version  
of the
thesis in french: "conscience et mécanisme", with all details, but  
then
it is 700 pages long, and even there, non-logician does not grasp  
the

logic. It is a pity but such kind of work reveals the abyssal gap
between logicians and physicists, and the Penrose misunderstanding  
of

Gödel's theorem has frightened the physicists to even take any look
further. To defend the thesis it took me more time to explain  
elementary

logic and computer science than philosophy of mind.



A book would surely appeal to a larger audience, but a paper which
only mentions the required reading could also be enough, although in
the latter case fewer people would be willing to spend the time to
understand it.


There is a project underway to translate "Secret de l'amibe" into
English, which IMHO is an even better introduction to the topic than
Bruno's theses (a lot of technical detail has been supressed to make
the central ideas digestible). We're about half way through at present
- its a volunteer project though, so it will probably be another year
or so before it is done/


Thanks to Russell and Kim.









Does anyone have a complete downloadable archive of this mailing  
list,

besides the web-accessible google groups or nabble one?
Google groups seems to badly group posts together and generates  
some

duplicates for older posts.


I agree. Google groups are not practical. The first old archive were
very nice (Escribe); but like with all software, archiving get worst
with time. nabble is already better, and I don't know if there are  
other

one. Note also that the everything list, maintained by Wei Dai, is a
list lasting since a long time, so that the total archive must be  
rather
huge. Thanks to Wei Dai to maintain the list, despite the ASSA  
people
(Hal Finney, Wei Dai in some post, Schmidhuber, ...) seems to have  
quit
after losing the argument with the RSSA people. Well, to be sure  
Russell
Standish still use ASSA, it seems to me, and I have always  
defended the

idea that ASSA is indeed not completely non sensical, although it
concerns more the geography than the physics, in the comp frame.


If someone from those early times still has the posts, it might be
nice if they decided to post an archive (such as a mailer spool).
For large Usenet groups, it's not unusual for people to have
personal archives, even from 1980's and earlier.



I have often thought this would be a very useful resource - sadly I
never kept my own archive. It would probably be a good idea to webbot
/ spider to download the contents of the archives as they currently  
exist.


That might be useful. Especially with things like NDAA, SOPA, etc.
Looks like deeper threats than usual accumulate on the free world.





I had no idea that was the reason I don't seem them post
anymore(when I was looking at older posts, I saw they used to post
here).



For most people, the everything list is a side interest, and other
priorities and interests will interfere with particpation. Bruno is
one of the few people who has dedicated his life to this topic, so one
shouldn't be too surprised if other people leave the list out of  
exhaustion :).


In cognitive science, many confuse science and philosophy. I like  
philosophy but it is not my job. I don't defend any truth, but only  
attempt to criticize invalid arguments.






As for losing the  "R

Re: JOINING Post and On measure alteration mechanisms and other practical tests for COMP

[Russell Standish]

On Sat, Jan 07, 2012 at 07:02:52AM +0200, acw wrote:
> On 1/6/2012 18:57, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >
> >On 05 Jan 2012, at 11:02, acw wrote:
> 
> Thanks for replying. I was worried my post was too big and few
> people will bother reading it due to size. I hope to read your
> opinion on the viability of the experiment I presented in my
> original post.

Any chance you could break it up into smaller digestible pieces?

> 
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>To Bruno Marchal:
> >>
> >>Do you plan on ever publishing your thesis in english? My french is a
> >>bit rusty and it would take a rather long time to walk through it,
> >>however I did read the SANE and CC&Q papers, as well as a few others.
> >
> >I think that SANE is enough, although some people pushes me to submit to
> >some more public journal. It is not yet clear if physicist or logician
> >will understand. Physicists asks the good questions but don't have the
> >logical tools. Logicians have the right tools, but are not really
> >interested in the applied question. By tradition modern logicians
> >despise their philosophical origin. Some personal contingent problems
> >slow me down, too. Don't want to bore you with this.
> 
> If it's sufficient, I'll just have to read the right books to better
> understand AUDA, as it is now, I understood some parts, but also had
> trouble connecting some ideas in the AUDA.
> 
> >Maybe I should write a book. There is, on my url, a long version of the
> >thesis in french: "conscience et mécanisme", with all details, but then
> >it is 700 pages long, and even there, non-logician does not grasp the
> >logic. It is a pity but such kind of work reveals the abyssal gap
> >between logicians and physicists, and the Penrose misunderstanding of
> >Gödel's theorem has frightened the physicists to even take any look
> >further. To defend the thesis it took me more time to explain elementary
> >logic and computer science than philosophy of mind.
> >
> 
> A book would surely appeal to a larger audience, but a paper which
> only mentions the required reading could also be enough, although in
> the latter case fewer people would be willing to spend the time to
> understand it.

There is a project underway to translate "Secret de l'amibe" into
English, which IMHO is an even better introduction to the topic than
Bruno's theses (a lot of technical detail has been supressed to make
the central ideas digestible). We're about half way through at present
- its a volunteer project though, so it will probably be another year
or so before it is done/

> 
> >>
> >>Does anyone have a complete downloadable archive of this mailing list,
> >>besides the web-accessible google groups or nabble one?
> >>Google groups seems to badly group posts together and generates some
> >>duplicates for older posts.
> >
> >I agree. Google groups are not practical. The first old archive were
> >very nice (Escribe); but like with all software, archiving get worst
> >with time. nabble is already better, and I don't know if there are other
> >one. Note also that the everything list, maintained by Wei Dai, is a
> >list lasting since a long time, so that the total archive must be rather
> >huge. Thanks to Wei Dai to maintain the list, despite the ASSA people
> >(Hal Finney, Wei Dai in some post, Schmidhuber, ...) seems to have quit
> >after losing the argument with the RSSA people. Well, to be sure Russell
> >Standish still use ASSA, it seems to me, and I have always defended the
> >idea that ASSA is indeed not completely non sensical, although it
> >concerns more the geography than the physics, in the comp frame.
> >
> If someone from those early times still has the posts, it might be
> nice if they decided to post an archive (such as a mailer spool).
> For large Usenet groups, it's not unusual for people to have
> personal archives, even from 1980's and earlier.
> 

I have often thought this would be a very useful resource - sadly I
never kept my own archive. It would probably be a good idea to webbot
/ spider to download the contents of the archives as they currently exist.

> I had no idea that was the reason I don't seem them post
> anymore(when I was looking at older posts, I saw they used to post
> here).
> 

For most people, the everything list is a side interest, and other
priorities and interests will interfere with particpation. Bruno is
one of the few people who has dedicated his life to this topic, so one
shouldn't be too surprised if other people leave the list out of exhaustion :).

> As for losing the  "RSSA vs ASSA" debate, what was the conclusive
> argument that tilts the favor toward RSSA (if it's too long, linking
> to the thread will do)? In my personal opinion, I used to initially
> consider ASSA as generally true, because assuming continuity of
> consciousness is a stronger hypothesis, despite being 'felt' from
> the inside, but then I realized that if I'm assuming
> consciousness/mind, I might as well assume continuity as well (from
> the perspective of the observe

Re: JOINING Post and On measure alteration mechanisms and other practical tests for COMP

[Bruno Marchal]

On 07 Jan 2012, at 18:07, Jason Resch wrote:




On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 10:57 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:




Assuming all possible (consistent mathematical) structures is the
simplest possible hypothesis. The problem with this is that this
'whole' might be a bit too large or inconsistent in itself (like
Russell's Paradox), and like I've said before, there is no way for us
finite humans to know an oracle when we see it. If we're a bit more
modest, we can use the only mathematical notion that we know to be
truly universal - computation as by CTT.


OK. The main problem also is in the self-localization in the  
possible math structure. Comp entails a first person indeterminacy  
which distribute us in the mathematical reality, and what we  
perceive might NOT be a purely mathematical structure, but something  
"supervening" on it from the inside view. This is a point missed by  
people like Chalmers, Tegmark, Schmidhuber, etc.




Bruno, would you say that Tegmark has still missed the point, given  
this article he co-authored:


http://lesswrong.com/lw/3pg/aguirre_tegmark_layzer_cosmological/
http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1066

Thanks,





Tegmark uses comp +swe, when comp makes it necessary to derive swe  
from universal number self-reference (which then gives both the quanta  
and the qualia (frely from the classical theory of knowledge).


For the physical reality you can say that he is very close to comp,  
with Everett and Deutsch, but he missed the comp reversal between  
physics and number's 'theology'. He does not address the mind body  
problem, and seems unaware that comp reduces it in justifying swe (or  
the 'correct physical laws') from the math of self-observing universal  
machine.  It is still an Aristotelian. He still infer (from  
observation) the unitary evolution. But he uses comp, so by UDA the  
unitary evolution must be derived from elementary arithmetic. From a  
platonist view, he is still cheating. He is still trying to copy on  
nature.


He missed, following a long tradition, the mind-body problem, despite  
his physics, and even his metaphysics (mathematicalism) is very close  
to the comp needed physics. Yet UDA explains (or is supposed to  
explain)  that physics *has to* be justified by universal  
introspection (and so based on G, G* and the intensional variants, to  
get that measure on the UD*, or on the sigma_1 propositions).


It is very good physics, from a comp view. But he misses that physical  
realities are a first person sharable numbers' dreams.
Like Everett explains the phenomenology of the collapse, comp asks for  
a phenomenological account of the swe in arithmetic.


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: JOINING Post and On measure alteration mechanisms and other practical tests for COMP

[Jason Resch]

On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 10:57 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
>
> Assuming all possible (consistent mathematical) structures is the
> simplest possible hypothesis. The problem with this is that this
> 'whole' might be a bit too large or inconsistent in itself (like
> Russell's Paradox), and like I've said before, there is no way for us
> finite humans to know an oracle when we see it. If we're a bit more
> modest, we can use the only mathematical notion that we know to be
> truly universal - computation as by CTT.
>
>
> OK. The main problem also is in the self-localization in the possible math
> structure. Comp entails a first person indeterminacy which distribute us in
> the mathematical reality, and what we perceive might NOT be a purely
> mathematical structure, but something "supervening" on it from the inside
> view. This is a point missed by people like Chalmers, Tegmark, Schmidhuber,
> etc.
>
>
>
Bruno, would you say that Tegmark has still missed the point, given this
article he co-authored:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/3pg/aguirre_tegmark_layzer_cosmological/
http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1066

Thanks,

Jason

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Re: JOINING Post and On measure alteration mechanisms and other practical tests for COMP

[acw]

On 1/6/2012 18:57, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 05 Jan 2012, at 11:02, acw wrote:


Hello everything-list, this is my first post here, but I've been
reading this list for at least half a year, and I'm afraid this post
will be a bit long as it contains many thoughts I've had on my mind
for quite some time now.


Welcome acw. It looks like you wrote an interesting post. But it is very
long, as are most sentences in it.
I will make some easy comments. I will come back on it later, when I
have more time.


Thanks, I look forward to the full response.



A bit about me: I'm mostly self-taught in the matters concerning the
topics of 'everything-list' (Multiverse hypotheses, philosophy of
science, 'rationalism', theory of computation, cognitive science, AI,
models of computation, logic, physics), and I greatly enjoy reading
books and papers on the related subjects. My main activities center
mostly around software development and a various other fields directly
related to it.


OK. Self-teaching is often of better quality than listening to others.



It's fine and allows one to better study some matters, but it also may 
lead to gaps in knowledge if one isn't aware of the gaps.




I will give my positions/assumptions first before talking about the
actual topic I mentioned in the subject.

One of my positions (what I'm betting on, but cannot know) is that of
computationalism, that is, that one would survive a digital
substitution.


OK. As you know that is my working hypothesis. As a scientist I don't
know the truth. I certainly find it plausible, given our current
knowledge, and my main goal is to show that it leads to testable
consequences. Mainly, it reduces the mind body problem into an
arithmetical pure body problem.



Neither do I claim to know the truth, or should anyone else, if someone 
claims to know it, they may be telling a lie, voluntarily or not. Our 
senses aren't that reliable to claim absolute knowledge about the world 
and even when talking about mathematical truth, the incompleteness 
theorem applies to everyone.


Instead of truth, I tend to assign a theory a high confidence value, or 
to consider it more probable than others, but the only thing that we can 
really do beyond that is testing, falsification or verification of our 
expectations/theories.


It sort of was the main goal of my post - to show that there are some 
practical ways to test COMP that one might be able to do some day.





There are however many details regarding this that would have to be
made more precise and topic's goal is to elucidate some of these
uncertainties and invite others to give their ideas on the subject.


Why computationalism?

Chalmers' "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia" thought
experiment/argument shows that one can be forced to believe some
seemingly absurd things about the nature of consciousness if
functionalism is false (that is, if one assumes that conscious nature
depends on more than just functional organization, such as some
"magical" properties of matter).

Taking it from functionalism to computationalism isn't very hard
either, all it takes is assuming no concrete infinities are involved
in the brain's implementation and the CTT(Church Turing Thesis) does
the rest.


OK. And if you make explicit that COMP assumes only the existence of a
level, then you see that COMP, as discussed on this list, is a weaker
hypothesis that all the comp discussed in the literature. That is why I
refer to the generalized brain. The level can be so low that the
"generalized brain" is an entire galaxy or even a multiverse quantum
state. This does not make the assumption trivial, the main reversal,
between Aristotle theology and Plato theology still follows.


Too low a level and functionalism is no longer very practically 
testable, but the consequences of COMP (reversal) would still apply if 
it's true.
In my example (the experiment) from the previous post, I tried to assume 
a reasonable (mid(atomic)/high(neurons or higher)) substitution level, 
in that it could be tested someday. Such a mid/high-substitution level 
allows for the mind's implementation to become substrate independent 
(SIM), but if the new implementation isn't too exact, would the 
continuation likely or not: it should be conscious, but would it be 
likely to experience a continuation into a SIM after saying 'yes' to the 
doctor? Would it be more likely to end up "amnesiac" and just choose not 
to become a SIM?


I've discussed the matter of errors or inexact 'copies' in the previous 
post and will wait for your response on that part before going into more 
details again. In a way, I think it might be more reasonable to consider 
the mind's implementation and the environment's implementation 
separately (even if environment+mind are at least one (and infinity of) 
TM in COMP) as the environment has more chance to vary and only 
indirectly leads to conscious experience, or that it might be more of a 
wildcard.



While I cannot ever know i

Re: Joining Post

[Bruno Marchal]

Jon,  (nihil0)

On 28 Sep 2011, at 01:18, nihil0 wrote:


On Sep 27, 2:46 am, meekerdb  wrote:

I think Daniel Dennett's book "Elbow Room" is an excellent defense  
of compatibilist free

will and why it is the only kind worth having.


Great suggestion. The wikipedia page was fairly informative, but I'll
probably buy the book anyway. From what I gather, he believes the kind
of free will worth wanting is the appearance (or illusion) that we can
control our behavior to a large extent. I agree with him that we don't
want to be uncaused causes (or uninfluenced influences) of events,
which is how quantum particles appear to behave (i.e.,
stochastically).

"Everything that is physically possible" is not very well defined.   
And in any case it
doesn't follow that in an infinite universe everything possible  
must happen infinitely
many times.  For example it might be that almost all universes are  
uninteresting and

barren and only a finite number are interesting like ours.


Technically I think you are right. However, I was only talking about
an infinite universe likes ours that operates in accordance with the
laws of quantum physics. Let me explain by using what I've read of
Victor Stenger and Brian Greene. There are three ingredients in the
argument that all quantum-physical possibilities in our universe
happen infinitely many times. 1) There is an infinite number of Hubble
volumes in our universe, which are all casually disconnected (as the
theory of inflation implies). 2) There is a limit on how much matter
and energy can exist within a region of space of a given size, such as
a Hubble volume. 3) There is only a finite number of possible
configurations of matter, due to the Uncertainty Principle.

I can explain any of these ingredients in more depth if you'd like me
to, but I hope you see that they lead to the conclusion that all
quantum-physical possibilities in our universe are realized infinitely
many times.

Bruno you say, "To have everything happening, you need the universe
being infinitely big, but also homogenous, and robust enough for
making possible gigantic connections and gigantic computations, etc."
I thought that physicists have observed our universe to be homogenous
on very large scales, but perhaps I'm mistaken. See the Cosmological
Principal  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_principle.


I don't assume physics.
But, although it is not relevant for my point, it is not clear for me  
that the cosmological principle makes a UD possibly running in the  
universe. Such a physical UD has to be *very* demanding in physical  
space and time. But a concrete universe with a UD is an hypothesis  
which is used for pedagogical purpose only. The step 8  (MGA)  
eliminates that assumption.


MGA = the Movie graph argument. I explained it in this list:
http://www.nabble.com/MGA-1-td20566948.html#a20566948



I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "robust enough for making
possible gigantic connections and gigantic computations, etc."


Imagine a program with 10^(10^(10^ . < repeated a billion  
times> ...) instructions. And this, for a logician, is still a very  
tiny little number. yet to store it in a machine in such a way that  
the program will do what it is supposed to do, you need more than a  
homogenous universe, you need a way to avoid systematically black  
holes, star explosion, etc.





but
perhaps the following explanation will be helpful. During the
inflation right before the Big Bang, all of the now disconnected
Hubble volumes were squeezed together and could affect each other.
Brian Greene says they conducted a variety of cosmic handshakes,
establishing, for example, a uniform temperature.


The UD argument does not presuppose any physical laws. Just a minimal  
amount of physical reality (but not that such a physical reality is  
primitive).


Best,

Bruno





Cheers,

Jon

On Sep 27, 2:46 am, meekerdb  wrote:

On 9/26/2011 10:35 PM, nihil0 wrote:


It's a little late for this post since I've already posted 2 or 3
things, but I figured I might as well introduce myself.


I'm majoring at philosophy at the University of Michigan, however  
I'm

studying abroad for a trimester at Oxford. I turn 21 on Oct. 4.



The main questions I've been researching are the following:


1. What kind of free will is worth wanting, and do we have it,  
despite

the deterministic evolution of the Schrodinger Equation?


I think Daniel Dennett's book "Elbow Room" is an excellent defense  
of compatibilist free

will and why it is the only kind worth having.




2. Recent cosmological evidence indicates that our universe is
infinitely big, and everything that is physically possible happens  
an

infinite number of times.


"Everything that is physically possible" is not very well defined.   
And in any case it
doesn't follow that in an infinite universe everything possible  
must happen infinitely
many times.  For example it might be that almost all universes are  
uninteresting and

barren and 

Re: Joining Post

[Jason Resch]

On Sep 28, 2011, at 1:28 AM, meekerdb  wrote:


On 9/27/2011 10:40 PM, Jason Resch wrote:




On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:52 PM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 9/27/2011 9:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



I don't think that.  I just noted it's logically possible,  
contrary to assertions that our universe must be duplicated  
infinitely many times.


If our universe is not duplicated a huge number of times, then  
quantum computers would not work.  They rely on huge numbers of  
universes different from ours aside from a few entangled  
particles.  Even normal interference patterns are explained by  
there existing a huge number of very similar universes.


Or by Feynmann paths that zigzag in spacetime.  Don't become to  
enamored of an interpretation.



If you assume there is a single photon interfering with itself,  
how  is it that this one particle can evaluate a problem whose  
computational complexity would exceed that of any conventional  
computer using all the matter in the universe?


Has such a problem been solved?


Quantum computers have been built, but last I checked it was only 7  
qubits.  There is no known principle which would forbid quantum  
computers having more qubits.  Even one with a few thousand could  
solve problems we could not otherwise.


Anyway, the answer is by the one particle cycling back thru time, so  
it appears to us as many particles.




If this is a possible answer you should write David deutsch, since he  
says he has never received an explanation in a non many worlds  
framework.


Then again, if every partical is going backwards in time to cover  
every possibility, is that really any different? Would not all  
possibilities be realized infinitely often?











However, according to Vilenkin, Greene, and
Tegmark, a generic prediction of the theory of inflation is that  
there

is an *infinite* number of Hubble volumes (what you are calling
universes).  Let's call the hypothesis that all quantum-physical
possibilities are realized infinitely many times "the hypothesis of
Cosmic Repetition". Brian Greene argues for this hypothesis quite
persuasively. He says, "In an infinitely big universe, there are
infinitely many patches [i.e., Hubble volumes]; so, with only  
finitely

many different particles arrangements, the arrangements of particles
within patches must be duplicated an infinite number of times." (The
Hidden Reality, pg. 33)
It's plausible - but not logically required.  Suppose all the  
infinite universes are number 1, 2, ...  Number 1 is ours.  Number  
2 something different.  Numbers  3,4, ...inf are exact copies of  
number 2.  So there are only two arrangements of particles; in  
spite of there being infinitely many universes.


Not logically required, but I would say it is not consistent with  
our current theories and observations.





As for the probability distribution of matter and/or outcomes, I'll
let Tegmark do the explaining:

"Observers living in parallel universes at Level I observe the exact
same laws of physics as we do, but with different initial conditions
than those in our Hubble volume.

This is questionable.  Most theories of the universe starting from  
a quantum fluctuation or tunneling from a prior universe assume  
that the universe must start very small - no more than a few  
Planck volumes.


The generalized theory of inflation is eternal inflation.  It  
leads to an exponentially growing volume which expands forever.


 This limits the amount of information that can possibly be  
provided as initial conditions.  So where does all the information  
come from?


I haven't heard the theory that there is an upper bound on the  
information content for this universe set by the big bang.


In one Planck volume there is only room for one bit.  That's the  
holographic principle.



Yet our universe appears to take more than 1 bit to describe, and  
it seems to have a possibly infinite volume.



That's why I provided the (possible) explanation below.





As to where information comes from, if all possibilities exist,  
the total information content may be zero, and the appearance of a  
large amount of information is a local illusion.


 QM allows negative information (hidden correlations) so that one  
possibility is that the net information is zero or very small and  
the apparent information is created by the existence of the hubble  
horizon.



The currently favored theory is that
the initial conditions (the densities and motions of different types
of matter early on) were created by quantum fluctuations during the
inflation
epoch (see section 3). This quantum mechanism generates initial
conditions that are for all practical purposes random, producing
density fluctuations described by what mathematicians call an  
ergodic
random field. Ergodic means that if you imagine generating an  
ensemble

of universes, each with its own random initial conditions, then the
probability distribution of outcomes in a given volume is  
identical to

Re: Joining Post

[meekerdb]

On 9/27/2011 10:40 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:52 PM, meekerdb > wrote:


On 9/27/2011 9:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



I don't think that.  I just noted it's logically possible, contrary to
assertions that our universe must be duplicated infinitely many times.


If our universe is not duplicated a huge number of times, then quantum 
computers
would not work.  They rely on huge numbers of universes different from ours 
aside
from a few entangled particles.  Even normal interference patterns are 
explained by
there existing a huge number of very similar universes.


Or by Feynmann paths that zigzag in spacetime.  Don't become to enamored of 
an
interpretation.


If you assume there is a single photon interfering with itself, how  is it that this one 
particle can evaluate a problem whose computational complexity would exceed that of any 
conventional computer using all the matter in the universe?


Has such a problem been solved?  Anyway, the answer is by the one particle cycling back 
thru time, so it appears to us as many particles.







However, according to Vilenkin, Greene, and
Tegmark, a generic prediction of the theory of inflation is that 
there
is an *infinite* number of Hubble volumes (what you are calling
universes).  Let's call the hypothesis that all quantum-physical
possibilities are realized infinitely many times "the hypothesis of
Cosmic Repetition". Brian Greene argues for this hypothesis quite
persuasively. He says, "In an infinitely big universe, there are
infinitely many patches [i.e., Hubble volumes]; so, with only 
finitely
many different particles arrangements, the arrangements of particles
within patches must be duplicated an infinite number of times." (The
Hidden Reality, pg. 33)

It's plausible - but not logically required.  Suppose all the infinite
universes are number 1, 2, ...  Number 1 is ours.  Number 2 something
different.  Numbers  3,4, ...inf are exact copies of number 2.  So 
there are
only two arrangements of particles; in spite of there being infinitely 
many
universes.


Not logically required, but I would say it is not consistent with our 
current
theories and observations.




As for the probability distribution of matter and/or outcomes, I'll
let Tegmark do the explaining:

"Observers living in parallel universes at Level I observe the exact
same laws of physics as we do, but with different initial conditions
than those in our Hubble volume.


This is questionable.  Most theories of the universe starting from a 
quantum
fluctuation or tunneling from a prior universe assume that the universe 
must
start very small - no more than a few Planck volumes.


The generalized theory of inflation is eternal inflation.  It leads to an
exponentially growing volume which expands forever.

 This limits the amount of information that can possibly be provided as 
initial
conditions.  So where does all the information come from?


I haven't heard the theory that there is an upper bound on the information 
content
for this universe set by the big bang.


In one Planck volume there is only room for one bit.  That's the 
holographic principle.


Yet our universe appears to take more than 1 bit to describe, and it seems to have a 
possibly infinite volume.



That's why I provided the (possible) explanation below.





As to where information comes from, if all possibilities exist, the total
information content may be zero, and the appearance of a large amount of
information is a local illusion.

 QM allows negative information (hidden correlations) so that one 
possibility
is that the net information is zero or very small and the apparent 
information
is created by the existence of the hubble horizon.


The currently favored theory is that
the initial conditions (the densities and motions of different types
of matter early on) were created by quantum fluctuations during the
inflation
epoch (see section 3). This quantum mechanism generates initial
conditions that are for all practical purposes random, producing
density fluctuations described by what mathematicians call an 
ergodic
random field. Ergodic means that if you imagine generating an 
ensemble
of universes, each with its own random initial conditions, then the
probability distribution of outcomes in a given volume is identical 
to
the distribution that you get by sampling different volumes in a
single universe. 



That's not what ergodic means.  In the theo

Re: Joining Post

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:52 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 9/27/2011 9:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>>  I don't think that.  I just noted it's logically possible, contrary to
>> assertions that our universe must be duplicated infinitely many times.
>
>
>  If our universe is not duplicated a huge number of times, then quantum
> computers would not work.  They rely on huge numbers of universes different
> from ours aside from a few entangled particles.  Even normal interference
> patterns are explained by there existing a huge number of very similar
> universes.
>
>
> Or by Feynmann paths that zigzag in spacetime.  Don't become to enamored of
> an interpretation.
>
>
If you assume there is a single photon interfering with itself, how  is it
that this one particle can evaluate a problem whose computational complexity
would exceed that of any conventional computer using all the matter in the
universe?


>
>
>
>>
>>
>>  However, according to Vilenkin, Greene, and
>>> Tegmark, a generic prediction of the theory of inflation is that there
>>> is an *infinite* number of Hubble volumes (what you are calling
>>> universes).  Let's call the hypothesis that all quantum-physical
>>> possibilities are realized infinitely many times "the hypothesis of
>>> Cosmic Repetition". Brian Greene argues for this hypothesis quite
>>> persuasively. He says, "In an infinitely big universe, there are
>>> infinitely many patches [i.e., Hubble volumes]; so, with only finitely
>>> many different particles arrangements, the arrangements of particles
>>> within patches must be duplicated an infinite number of times." (The
>>> Hidden Reality, pg. 33)
>>>
>>  It's plausible - but not logically required.  Suppose all the infinite
>> universes are number 1, 2, ...  Number 1 is ours.  Number 2 something
>> different.  Numbers  3,4, ...inf are exact copies of number 2.  So there are
>> only two arrangements of particles; in spite of there being infinitely many
>> universes.
>
>
>  Not logically required, but I would say it is not consistent with our
> current theories and observations.
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>> As for the probability distribution of matter and/or outcomes, I'll
>>> let Tegmark do the explaining:
>>>
>>> "Observers living in parallel universes at Level I observe the exact
>>> same laws of physics as we do, but with different initial conditions
>>> than those in our Hubble volume.
>>>
>>
>>  This is questionable.  Most theories of the universe starting from a
>> quantum fluctuation or tunneling from a prior universe assume that the
>> universe must start very small - no more than a few Planck volumes.
>
>
>  The generalized theory of inflation is eternal inflation.  It leads to an
> exponentially growing volume which expands forever.
>
>
>>  This limits the amount of information that can possibly be provided as
>> initial conditions.  So where does all the information come from?
>
>
>  I haven't heard the theory that there is an upper bound on the
> information content for this universe set by the big bang.
>
>
> In one Planck volume there is only room for one bit.  That's the
> holographic principle.
>
>
Yet our universe appears to take more than 1 bit to describe, and it seems
to have a possibly infinite volume.


>
>
>  As to where information comes from, if all possibilities exist, the total
> information content may be zero, and the appearance of a large amount of
> information is a local illusion.
>
>
>>  QM allows negative information (hidden correlations) so that one
>> possibility is that the net information is zero or very small and the
>> apparent information is created by the existence of the hubble horizon.
>>
>>
>>  The currently favored theory is that
>>> the initial conditions (the densities and motions of different types
>>> of matter early on) were created by quantum fluctuations during the
>>> inflation
>>> epoch (see section 3). This quantum mechanism generates initial
>>> conditions that are for all practical purposes random, producing
>>> density fluctuations described by what mathematicians call an ergodic
>>> random field. Ergodic means that if you imagine generating an ensemble
>>> of universes, each with its own random initial conditions, then the
>>> probability distribution of outcomes in a given volume is identical to
>>> the distribution that you get by sampling different volumes in a
>>> single universe.
>>
>>
> That's not what ergodic means.  In the theory of stochastic processes it
> means that ensemble statistics are the same as temporal statistics.  In the
> eternal expansion theory it is not assumed that the physics is the same in
> each bubble universe.
>

This one "bubble" is infinitely big according to eternal inflation.


>   It is hypothesized that the spontaneous symmetry breaking that results in
> different coupling constants for the weak, strong, EM, and gravity forces is
> random.  That's how it provides and anthropic explanation for "fine-tuning"
> - we're in the one where the random symmetry 

Re: Joining Post

[meekerdb]

On 9/27/2011 9:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:52 PM, meekerdb > wrote:


On 9/27/2011 8:07 PM, nihil0 wrote:

On 9/27/2011 4:18 PM, nihil0 wrote:

1) There is an infinite number of Hubble
volumes in our universe, which are all casually disconnected 
(as the
theory of inflation implies). 2) There is a limit on how much 
matter
and energy can exist within a region of space of a given size, 
such as
a Hubble volume. 3) There is only a finite number of possible
configurations of matter, due to the Uncertainty Principle.
I can explain any of these ingredients in more depth if you'd 
like me
to, but I hope you see that they lead to the conclusion that all
quantum-physical possibilities in our universe are realized 
infinitely
many times.

On Sep 27, 7:47 pm, meekerdbmailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>
 wrote:

No they don't.   There's an implicit assumption that what happens 
in these
other universes
has the same or similar probability distribution as we observe in 
ours.  A
reasonable
assumption, but not a logically necessary one.  I think it's what 
Bruno means by
"homogeneous".  It's logically possible that all but a finite 
number of
these universes
are just exact copies of the same completely empty universe, for 
example.

Brent

You imply that it's logically possible that there is only a finite
number of universes that are filled with matter, and you seem to think
few will resemble ours.


I don't think that.  I just noted it's logically possible, contrary to 
assertions
that our universe must be duplicated infinitely many times.


If our universe is not duplicated a huge number of times, then quantum computers would 
not work.  They rely on huge numbers of universes different from ours aside from a few 
entangled particles.  Even normal interference patterns are explained by there existing 
a huge number of very similar universes.


Or by Feynmann paths that zigzag in spacetime.  Don't become to enamored of an 
interpretation.






However, according to Vilenkin, Greene, and
Tegmark, a generic prediction of the theory of inflation is that there
is an *infinite* number of Hubble volumes (what you are calling
universes).  Let's call the hypothesis that all quantum-physical
possibilities are realized infinitely many times "the hypothesis of
Cosmic Repetition". Brian Greene argues for this hypothesis quite
persuasively. He says, "In an infinitely big universe, there are
infinitely many patches [i.e., Hubble volumes]; so, with only finitely
many different particles arrangements, the arrangements of particles
within patches must be duplicated an infinite number of times." (The
Hidden Reality, pg. 33)

It's plausible - but not logically required.  Suppose all the infinite 
universes are
number 1, 2, ...  Number 1 is ours.  Number 2 something different.  Numbers 
 3,4,
...inf are exact copies of number 2.  So there are only two arrangements of
particles; in spite of there being infinitely many universes.


Not logically required, but I would say it is not consistent with our current theories 
and observations.





As for the probability distribution of matter and/or outcomes, I'll
let Tegmark do the explaining:

"Observers living in parallel universes at Level I observe the exact
same laws of physics as we do, but with different initial conditions
than those in our Hubble volume.


This is questionable.  Most theories of the universe starting from a quantum
fluctuation or tunneling from a prior universe assume that the universe 
must start
very small - no more than a few Planck volumes.


The generalized theory of inflation is eternal inflation.  It leads to an exponentially 
growing volume which expands forever.


 This limits the amount of information that can possibly be provided as 
initial
conditions.  So where does all the information come from?


I haven't heard the theory that there is an upper bound on the information content for 
this universe set by the big bang.


In one Planck volume there is only room for one bit.  That's the holographic 
principle.



As to where information comes from, if all possibilities exist, the total information 
content may be zero, and the appearance of a large amount of information is a local 
illusion.


 QM allows negative information (hidden correlations) so that one 
possibility is
that the net information is zero or very small and the apparent information 
is
created by the existence of the hubble horizon.


The cu

Re: Joining Post

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:52 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

> On 9/27/2011 8:07 PM, nihil0 wrote:
>
>> On 9/27/2011 4:18 PM, nihil0 wrote:
>>
>>  1) There is an infinite number of Hubble
 volumes in our universe, which are all casually disconnected (as the
 theory of inflation implies). 2) There is a limit on how much matter
 and energy can exist within a region of space of a given size, such as
 a Hubble volume. 3) There is only a finite number of possible
 configurations of matter, due to the Uncertainty Principle.
 I can explain any of these ingredients in more depth if you'd like me
 to, but I hope you see that they lead to the conclusion that all
 quantum-physical possibilities in our universe are realized infinitely
 many times.

>>> On Sep 27, 7:47 pm, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>>  No they don't.   There's an implicit assumption that what happens in
>>> these other universes
>>> has the same or similar probability distribution as we observe in ours.
>>>  A reasonable
>>> assumption, but not a logically necessary one.  I think it's what Bruno
>>> means by
>>> "homogeneous".  It's logically possible that all but a finite number of
>>> these universes
>>> are just exact copies of the same completely empty universe, for example.
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>> You imply that it's logically possible that there is only a finite
>> number of universes that are filled with matter, and you seem to think
>> few will resemble ours.
>>
>
> I don't think that.  I just noted it's logically possible, contrary to
> assertions that our universe must be duplicated infinitely many times.


If our universe is not duplicated a huge number of times, then quantum
computers would not work.  They rely on huge numbers of universes different
from ours aside from a few entangled particles.  Even normal interference
patterns are explained by there existing a huge number of very similar
universes.


>
>
>  However, according to Vilenkin, Greene, and
>> Tegmark, a generic prediction of the theory of inflation is that there
>> is an *infinite* number of Hubble volumes (what you are calling
>> universes).  Let's call the hypothesis that all quantum-physical
>> possibilities are realized infinitely many times "the hypothesis of
>> Cosmic Repetition". Brian Greene argues for this hypothesis quite
>> persuasively. He says, "In an infinitely big universe, there are
>> infinitely many patches [i.e., Hubble volumes]; so, with only finitely
>> many different particles arrangements, the arrangements of particles
>> within patches must be duplicated an infinite number of times." (The
>> Hidden Reality, pg. 33)
>>
> It's plausible - but not logically required.  Suppose all the infinite
> universes are number 1, 2, ...  Number 1 is ours.  Number 2 something
> different.  Numbers  3,4, ...inf are exact copies of number 2.  So there are
> only two arrangements of particles; in spite of there being infinitely many
> universes.


Not logically required, but I would say it is not consistent with our
current theories and observations.


>
>
>
>> As for the probability distribution of matter and/or outcomes, I'll
>> let Tegmark do the explaining:
>>
>> "Observers living in parallel universes at Level I observe the exact
>> same laws of physics as we do, but with different initial conditions
>> than those in our Hubble volume.
>>
>
> This is questionable.  Most theories of the universe starting from a
> quantum fluctuation or tunneling from a prior universe assume that the
> universe must start very small - no more than a few Planck volumes.


The generalized theory of inflation is eternal inflation.  It leads to an
exponentially growing volume which expands forever.


>  This limits the amount of information that can possibly be provided as
> initial conditions.  So where does all the information come from?


I haven't heard the theory that there is an upper bound on the information
content for this universe set by the big bang.

As to where information comes from, if all possibilities exist, the total
information content may be zero, and the appearance of a large amount of
information is a local illusion.


>  QM allows negative information (hidden correlations) so that one
> possibility is that the net information is zero or very small and the
> apparent information is created by the existence of the hubble horizon.
>
>
>  The currently favored theory is that
>> the initial conditions (the densities and motions of different types
>> of matter early on) were created by quantum fluctuations during the
>> inflation
>> epoch (see section 3). This quantum mechanism generates initial
>> conditions that are for all practical purposes random, producing
>> density fluctuations described by what mathematicians call an ergodic
>> random field. Ergodic means that if you imagine generating an ensemble
>> of universes, each with its own random initial conditions, then the
>> probability distribution of outcomes in a given volume is identical to
>

Re: Joining Post

[meekerdb]

On 9/27/2011 8:07 PM, nihil0 wrote:

On 9/27/2011 4:18 PM, nihil0 wrote:


1) There is an infinite number of Hubble
volumes in our universe, which are all casually disconnected (as the
theory of inflation implies). 2) There is a limit on how much matter
and energy can exist within a region of space of a given size, such as
a Hubble volume. 3) There is only a finite number of possible
configurations of matter, due to the Uncertainty Principle.
I can explain any of these ingredients in more depth if you'd like me
to, but I hope you see that they lead to the conclusion that all
quantum-physical possibilities in our universe are realized infinitely
many times.

On Sep 27, 7:47 pm, meekerdb  wrote:


No they don't.   There's an implicit assumption that what happens in these 
other universes
has the same or similar probability distribution as we observe in ours.  A 
reasonable
assumption, but not a logically necessary one.  I think it's what Bruno means by
"homogeneous".  It's logically possible that all but a finite number of these 
universes
are just exact copies of the same completely empty universe, for example.

Brent

You imply that it's logically possible that there is only a finite
number of universes that are filled with matter, and you seem to think
few will resemble ours.


I don't think that.  I just noted it's logically possible, contrary to assertions that our 
universe must be duplicated infinitely many times.



However, according to Vilenkin, Greene, and
Tegmark, a generic prediction of the theory of inflation is that there
is an *infinite* number of Hubble volumes (what you are calling
universes).  Let's call the hypothesis that all quantum-physical
possibilities are realized infinitely many times "the hypothesis of
Cosmic Repetition". Brian Greene argues for this hypothesis quite
persuasively. He says, "In an infinitely big universe, there are
infinitely many patches [i.e., Hubble volumes]; so, with only finitely
many different particles arrangements, the arrangements of particles
within patches must be duplicated an infinite number of times." (The
Hidden Reality, pg. 33)
It's plausible - but not logically required.  Suppose all the infinite universes are 
number 1, 2, ...  Number 1 is ours.  Number 2 something different.  Numbers  3,4, ...inf 
are exact copies of number 2.  So there are only two arrangements of particles; in spite 
of there being infinitely many universes.




As for the probability distribution of matter and/or outcomes, I'll
let Tegmark do the explaining:

"Observers living in parallel universes at Level I observe the exact
same laws of physics as we do, but with different initial conditions
than those in our Hubble volume.


This is questionable.  Most theories of the universe starting from a quantum fluctuation 
or tunneling from a prior universe assume that the universe must start very small - no 
more than a few Planck volumes.  This limits the amount of information that can possibly 
be provided as initial conditions.  So where does all the information come from?  QM 
allows negative information (hidden correlations) so that one possibility is that the net 
information is zero or very small and the apparent information is created by the existence 
of the hubble horizon.



The currently favored theory is that
the initial conditions (the densities and motions of different types
of matter early on) were created by quantum fluctuations during the
inflation
epoch (see section 3). This quantum mechanism generates initial
conditions that are for all practical purposes random, producing
density fluctuations described by what mathematicians call an ergodic
random field. Ergodic means that if you imagine generating an ensemble
of universes, each with its own random initial conditions, then the
probability distribution of outcomes in a given volume is identical to
the distribution that you get by sampling different volumes in a
single universe. In other words, it means that everything that could
in principle have happened here did in fact happen somewhere else.
Inflation in fact generates all possible initial conditions
with non-zero probability, the most likely ones being almost uniform
with fluctuations at the 10^5 level that are amplified by
gravitational clustering to form galaxies,
stars, planets and other structures. This means both that pretty much
all imaginable matter configurations occur in some Hubble volume far
away, and also that we should
expect our own Hubble volume to be a fairly typical one — at least
typical among those that contain observers. A crude estimate suggests
that the closest identical copy
of you is about ∼ 10^(10^29)m away. . ." (The Multiverse Hierarchy,
section 1B, http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1283)

Do you still disagree with the hypothesis of Cosmic Repetition? Which
parts of the argument do you accept or deny?


See above.

Brent


Best regards,

Jon



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Re: Joining Post

[nihil0]

On 9/27/2011 4:18 PM, nihil0 wrote:

> > 1) There is an infinite number of Hubble
> > volumes in our universe, which are all casually disconnected (as the
> > theory of inflation implies). 2) There is a limit on how much matter
> > and energy can exist within a region of space of a given size, such as
> > a Hubble volume. 3) There is only a finite number of possible
> > configurations of matter, due to the Uncertainty Principle.
>
> > I can explain any of these ingredients in more depth if you'd like me
> > to, but I hope you see that they lead to the conclusion that all
> > quantum-physical possibilities in our universe are realized infinitely
> > many times.

On Sep 27, 7:47 pm, meekerdb  wrote:

> No they don't.   There's an implicit assumption that what happens in these 
> other universes
> has the same or similar probability distribution as we observe in ours.  A 
> reasonable
> assumption, but not a logically necessary one.  I think it's what Bruno means 
> by
> "homogeneous".  It's logically possible that all but a finite number of these 
> universes
> are just exact copies of the same completely empty universe, for example.
>
> Brent

You imply that it's logically possible that there is only a finite
number of universes that are filled with matter, and you seem to think
few will resemble ours. However, according to Vilenkin, Greene, and
Tegmark, a generic prediction of the theory of inflation is that there
is an *infinite* number of Hubble volumes (what you are calling
universes).  Let's call the hypothesis that all quantum-physical
possibilities are realized infinitely many times "the hypothesis of
Cosmic Repetition". Brian Greene argues for this hypothesis quite
persuasively. He says, "In an infinitely big universe, there are
infinitely many patches [i.e., Hubble volumes]; so, with only finitely
many different particles arrangements, the arrangements of particles
within patches must be duplicated an infinite number of times." (The
Hidden Reality, pg. 33)

As for the probability distribution of matter and/or outcomes, I'll
let Tegmark do the explaining:

"Observers living in parallel universes at Level I observe the exact
same laws of physics as we do, but with different initial conditions
than those in our Hubble volume. The currently favored theory is that
the initial conditions (the densities and motions of different types
of matter early on) were created by quantum fluctuations during the
inflation
epoch (see section 3). This quantum mechanism generates initial
conditions that are for all practical purposes random, producing
density fluctuations described by what mathematicians call an ergodic
random field. Ergodic means that if you imagine generating an ensemble
of universes, each with its own random initial conditions, then the
probability distribution of outcomes in a given volume is identical to
the distribution that you get by sampling different volumes in a
single universe. In other words, it means that everything that could
in principle have happened here did in fact happen somewhere else.
Inflation in fact generates all possible initial conditions
with non-zero probability, the most likely ones being almost uniform
with fluctuations at the 10^5 level that are amplified by
gravitational clustering to form galaxies,
stars, planets and other structures. This means both that pretty much
all imaginable matter configurations occur in some Hubble volume far
away, and also that we should
expect our own Hubble volume to be a fairly typical one — at least
typical among those that contain observers. A crude estimate suggests
that the closest identical copy
of you is about ∼ 10^(10^29)m away. . ." (The Multiverse Hierarchy,
section 1B, http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1283)

Do you still disagree with the hypothesis of Cosmic Repetition? Which
parts of the argument do you accept or deny?

Best regards,

Jon

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Re: Joining Post

[meekerdb]

On 9/27/2011 4:18 PM, nihil0 wrote:

On Sep 27, 2:46 am, meekerdb  wrote:


I think Daniel Dennett's book "Elbow Room" is an excellent defense of 
compatibilist free
will and why it is the only kind worth having.

Great suggestion. The wikipedia page was fairly informative, but I'll
probably buy the book anyway. From what I gather, he believes the kind
of free will worth wanting is the appearance (or illusion) that we can
control our behavior to a large extent. I agree with him that we don't
want to be uncaused causes (or uninfluenced influences) of events,
which is how quantum particles appear to behave (i.e.,
stochastically).


"Everything that is physically possible" is not very well defined.  And in any 
case it
doesn't follow that in an infinite universe everything possible must happen 
infinitely
many times.  For example it might be that almost all universes are 
uninteresting and
barren and only a finite number are interesting like ours.

Technically I think you are right. However, I was only talking about
an infinite universe likes ours that operates in accordance with the
laws of quantum physics. Let me explain by using what I've read of
Victor Stenger and Brian Greene. There are three ingredients in the
argument that all quantum-physical possibilities in our universe
happen infinitely many times. 1) There is an infinite number of Hubble
volumes in our universe, which are all casually disconnected (as the
theory of inflation implies). 2) There is a limit on how much matter
and energy can exist within a region of space of a given size, such as
a Hubble volume. 3) There is only a finite number of possible
configurations of matter, due to the Uncertainty Principle.

I can explain any of these ingredients in more depth if you'd like me
to, but I hope you see that they lead to the conclusion that all
quantum-physical possibilities in our universe are realized infinitely
many times.


No they don't.   There's an implicit assumption that what happens in these other universes 
has the same or similar probability distribution as we observe in ours.  A reasonable 
assumption, but not a logically necessary one.  I think it's what Bruno means by 
"homogeneous".  It's logically possible that all but a finite number of these universes 
are just exact copies of the same completely empty universe, for example.


Brent

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Re: Joining Post

[nihil0]

On Sep 27, 2:46 am, meekerdb  wrote:

> I think Daniel Dennett's book "Elbow Room" is an excellent defense of 
> compatibilist free
> will and why it is the only kind worth having.

Great suggestion. The wikipedia page was fairly informative, but I'll
probably buy the book anyway. From what I gather, he believes the kind
of free will worth wanting is the appearance (or illusion) that we can
control our behavior to a large extent. I agree with him that we don't
want to be uncaused causes (or uninfluenced influences) of events,
which is how quantum particles appear to behave (i.e.,
stochastically).

> "Everything that is physically possible" is not very well defined.  And in 
> any case it
> doesn't follow that in an infinite universe everything possible must happen 
> infinitely
> many times.  For example it might be that almost all universes are 
> uninteresting and
> barren and only a finite number are interesting like ours.

Technically I think you are right. However, I was only talking about
an infinite universe likes ours that operates in accordance with the
laws of quantum physics. Let me explain by using what I've read of
Victor Stenger and Brian Greene. There are three ingredients in the
argument that all quantum-physical possibilities in our universe
happen infinitely many times. 1) There is an infinite number of Hubble
volumes in our universe, which are all casually disconnected (as the
theory of inflation implies). 2) There is a limit on how much matter
and energy can exist within a region of space of a given size, such as
a Hubble volume. 3) There is only a finite number of possible
configurations of matter, due to the Uncertainty Principle.

I can explain any of these ingredients in more depth if you'd like me
to, but I hope you see that they lead to the conclusion that all
quantum-physical possibilities in our universe are realized infinitely
many times.

Bruno you say, "To have everything happening, you need the universe
being infinitely big, but also homogenous, and robust enough for
making possible gigantic connections and gigantic computations, etc."
I thought that physicists have observed our universe to be homogenous
on very large scales, but perhaps I'm mistaken. See the Cosmological
Principal  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_principle.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "robust enough for making
possible gigantic connections and gigantic computations, etc." but
perhaps the following explanation will be helpful. During the
inflation right before the Big Bang, all of the now disconnected
Hubble volumes were squeezed together and could affect each other.
Brian Greene says they conducted a variety of cosmic handshakes,
establishing, for example, a uniform temperature.

Cheers,

Jon

On Sep 27, 2:46 am, meekerdb  wrote:
> On 9/26/2011 10:35 PM, nihil0 wrote:
>
> > It's a little late for this post since I've already posted 2 or 3
> > things, but I figured I might as well introduce myself.
>
> > I'm majoring at philosophy at the University of Michigan, however I'm
> > studying abroad for a trimester at Oxford. I turn 21 on Oct. 4.
>
> > The main questions I've been researching are the following:
>
> > 1. What kind of free will is worth wanting, and do we have it, despite
> > the deterministic evolution of the Schrodinger Equation?
>
> I think Daniel Dennett's book "Elbow Room" is an excellent defense of 
> compatibilist free
> will and why it is the only kind worth having.
>
>
>
> > 2. Recent cosmological evidence indicates that our universe is
> > infinitely big, and everything that is physically possible happens an
> > infinite number of times.
>
> "Everything that is physically possible" is not very well defined.  And in 
> any case it
> doesn't follow that in an infinite universe everything possible must happen 
> infinitely
> many times.  For example it might be that almost all universes are 
> uninteresting and
> barren and only a finite number are interesting like ours.
>
> > Does this imply that I can't make a
> > difference to the total (or per capita) amount of well-being in the
> > world? I used to be a utilitarian until I read Nick Bostrom's paper
> > "The Infinitarian Challenge to Aggretive Ethics."
>
> Dunno.
>
>
>
> > 3. Can only mathematical truths be known for certain? Can you know
> > something without knowing it for certain?
>
> Sure.  In fact I'm not so sure mathematical truths can always be known for 
> certain.  For
> example the four-color theorem has a proof so long that it is hard to be sure 
> it is
> complete and has no errors.  I think it has only been checked by computer.  
> And we know
> computer programs can have bugs.
>
>
>
> > 4. Do the laws of physics determine (i.e., enforce) events, or do they
> > merely describe patterns and regularities that we have observed?
>
> It must be the latter, since we change the laws of physics as we get new 
> information.  But
> I wouldn't say "merely".  It's quite a feat to have predictively successful 
> theor

Re: Joining Post

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Jon, welcome,

On 27 Sep 2011, at 07:35, nihil0 wrote:


It's a little late for this post since I've already posted 2 or 3
things, but I figured I might as well introduce myself.

I'm majoring at philosophy at the University of Michigan, however I'm
studying abroad for a trimester at Oxford. I turn 21 on Oct. 4.

The main questions I've been researching are the following:

1. What kind of free will is worth wanting, and do we have it, despite
the deterministic evolution of the Schrodinger Equation?


Non determinism is useless to explain free will. You can illustrate  
this with iterated self-duplication, or with the use of random coin.  
It seems to me that adding randomness can only restrict free will.
free will is more of the type of partial self-determination. It might  
be explained by the ability of some entities (machines) to be  
partially aware of some ignorance spectrum on the way to achieve some  
goal. For example your goal is "to be happy tonight", but you ignore  
if this will be realize through going to the movie or to the  
restaurant. Free-will might correspond to your conscious ability to  
make a choice despite you have not all information at your disposition.
It generates a genuine feeling of responsibility, and dterminism does  
not eliminate it. A lawyer cannot defend a murderer by saying to the  
member of the jury that the murderer has only obey to to the  
deterministic equation of the universe. That defence will be nullified  
by the jury and judge who will condemn it to jail, arguing that they  
are also just obeying the same deterministic law.






2. Recent cosmological evidence indicates that our universe is
infinitely big, and everything that is physically possible happens an
infinite number of times.


Actually this is never justified. To have everything happening, you  
need the universe being infinitely big, but also homogenous, and  
robust enough for making possible gigantic connections and gigantic  
computations, etc.





Does this imply that I can't make a
difference to the total (or per capita) amount of well-being in the
world? I used to be a utilitarian until I read Nick Bostrom's paper
"The Infinitarian Challenge to Aggretive Ethics."


You can act on your own proportion of well-being, of you and the  
people you care about in some neighborhood, in your common future. I  
would say.






3. Can only mathematical truths be known for certain?


Is there any mathematical truth that we can known for certain? I  
really doubt so.
A case can be made for arithmetical truth, but even here, I would say  
personally that I "believe them" only with a very high plausibility  
coefficient. We can do dream in which the feeling of certainty is  
associated with what we realize, after awakening, to be blatant non  
sensical idea. I thought, one feverish night, that the color of the  
curtains did refute the use of the modus ponens rule in classical  
propositional logic.
What is clear is that arithmetic is the most lesser doubtful part of  
math, and with fever or drugs, seems to be shared by everyone, with  
the exception of the ultrafinitists, which are rare (and I think  
inconsistent). I have never meet someone doubting the excluded middle  
use in arithmetic. It makes sense for intuitionist people too, even if  
they interpret it differently.
Above arithmetic and finitist thinking things are more doubtful, and  
all mathematicians are glad when analytical proofs are replaced by  
elementary first order reasoning, which certainty is amenable to  
finitist or arithmetical reasoning.
The mathematical reality is globally not much more certain than  
physics, and is full of surprises and mysteries.





Can you know
something without knowing it for certain?


yes, and I can prove to you that if we are machine, and if you accept  
Theaetetus' theory of knowledge, it is even the general rule. In that  
theory knwoledge is true opinion, and with only once exception, true  
opinion is subjectively like an opinion and cannot be made certain.  
The only certainty exception is the fact that you are conscious and now>. All the rest can be doubted.





4. Do the laws of physics determine (i.e., enforce) events, or do they
merely describe patterns and regularities that we have observed?


The second one. I might argue from the mechanist hypothesis, but many  
things should be explained first.
In fact I doubt very much about the existence of a primary physical  
universe. I am willing to think that this is epistemologically  
incoherent once we assume that the brain works like a machine.
The laws of physics need, in that case, to be themselves complex  
pattern emerging statistically from infinitely many arithmetical  
relations. This cannot be explained shortly, but if you are patient,  
opportunities will appear to dig on this issue.


Best,

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Joining Post

[Jason Resch]

oof, or
that of someone else?  Perhaps we can be .9 certain of some
mathematicians reasoning, and the fact that no one else has yet caught an
error, and we are not currently delusional, but there is still an
uncertainty factor.


> Can you know
> something without knowing it for certain?
>

This is a question for the writers of dictionaries.


>
> 4. Do the laws of physics determine (i.e., enforce) events, or do they
> merely describe patterns and regularities that we have observed?
>
>
The assumption of most physicists is that they are studying the laws that
determine events.  We measure them once and they describe what we have
observed, but then the same law seems to be in effect again the next time we
look.  We don't see the laws change so it is a reasonable leap to say the
laws describe how the object (physical world) in which we are embedded
evolves.

That said, if our consciousness is embedded within an infinite number of
physical worlds (not just different locations within the same world) then
the question becomes a little more complex.  There is no single definite set
of laws, and the more closely we look each time, the more we are helping to
determine the laws for ourselves.  This idea was proposed by Wheeler:
http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse


> I would be grateful if anyone could shed some light on any of these
> questions. I'm very impressed with what I've read so far from people.
>
>
Ahh good, so you were looking for input. :-)


> Glad to be here,
>
>
Thanks, glad you are joining us.

Jason

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Re: Joining Post

[meekerdb]

On 9/26/2011 10:35 PM, nihil0 wrote:

It's a little late for this post since I've already posted 2 or 3
things, but I figured I might as well introduce myself.

I'm majoring at philosophy at the University of Michigan, however I'm
studying abroad for a trimester at Oxford. I turn 21 on Oct. 4.

The main questions I've been researching are the following:

1. What kind of free will is worth wanting, and do we have it, despite
the deterministic evolution of the Schrodinger Equation?


I think Daniel Dennett's book "Elbow Room" is an excellent defense of compatibilist free 
will and why it is the only kind worth having.




2. Recent cosmological evidence indicates that our universe is
infinitely big, and everything that is physically possible happens an
infinite number of times.


"Everything that is physically possible" is not very well defined.  And in any case it 
doesn't follow that in an infinite universe everything possible must happen infinitely 
many times.  For example it might be that almost all universes are uninteresting and 
barren and only a finite number are interesting like ours.



Does this imply that I can't make a
difference to the total (or per capita) amount of well-being in the
world? I used to be a utilitarian until I read Nick Bostrom's paper
"The Infinitarian Challenge to Aggretive Ethics."


Dunno.



3. Can only mathematical truths be known for certain? Can you know
something without knowing it for certain?


Sure.  In fact I'm not so sure mathematical truths can always be known for certain.  For 
example the four-color theorem has a proof so long that it is hard to be sure it is 
complete and has no errors.  I think it has only been checked by computer.  And we know 
computer programs can have bugs.




4. Do the laws of physics determine (i.e., enforce) events, or do they
merely describe patterns and regularities that we have observed?


It must be the latter, since we change the laws of physics as we get new information.  But 
I wouldn't say "merely".  It's quite a feat to have predictively successful theories.




I would be grateful if anyone could shed some light on any of these
questions. I'm very impressed with what I've read so far from people.

Glad to be here,

Jon


Welcome aboard.

Brent
Each philosopher knows a lot but, as a whole, philosophers don't know
anything. If they did, they would be scientists.
  --- Ludwig Krippahl   :-)

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Joining Post

[nihil0]

It's a little late for this post since I've already posted 2 or 3
things, but I figured I might as well introduce myself.

I'm majoring at philosophy at the University of Michigan, however I'm
studying abroad for a trimester at Oxford. I turn 21 on Oct. 4.

The main questions I've been researching are the following:

1. What kind of free will is worth wanting, and do we have it, despite
the deterministic evolution of the Schrodinger Equation?

2. Recent cosmological evidence indicates that our universe is
infinitely big, and everything that is physically possible happens an
infinite number of times. Does this imply that I can't make a
difference to the total (or per capita) amount of well-being in the
world? I used to be a utilitarian until I read Nick Bostrom's paper
"The Infinitarian Challenge to Aggretive Ethics."

3. Can only mathematical truths be known for certain? Can you know
something without knowing it for certain?

4. Do the laws of physics determine (i.e., enforce) events, or do they
merely describe patterns and regularities that we have observed?

I would be grateful if anyone could shed some light on any of these
questions. I'm very impressed with what I've read so far from people.

Glad to be here,

Jon

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Re: JOINING: Travis Garrett

[smitra]

Welcome!

I haven't been active on this list lately. Your article looks very 
interesting, I'll read it in detail.


Saibal



Citeren Travis Garrett :


Hi everybody,

  My name is Travis - I'm currently working as a postdoc at the
Perimeter Institute.  I got an email from Richard Gordon and Evgenii
Rudnyi pointing out that my recent paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2198
is being discussed here, so yeah, I'm happy to join the conversation.
I'll respond to some specific points in the discussion thread, but
what the heck, I'll give an overview of my idea here...

 The idea flows from the assumption that one can do an arbitrarily
good simulation of arbitrarily large regions of the universe inside a
sufficiently powerful computer -- more formally I assume the physical
version of the Church Turing Thesis.  Everything that exists can then
be viewed as different types of information.  The Observer Class
Hypothesis then proposes that observers collectively form by far the
largest set of information, due to the combinatorics that arise from
absorbing information from many different sources (the observers
thereby roughly resemble the power set of the set of all
information).  One thus exists as an observer because it is by far the
most probable form of existence.

 A couple caveats are of crucial importance: when I say information,
I mean non-trivial, gauge-invariant, "real" information, i.e.
information that has a large amount of effective complexity (Gell-Mann
and Lloyd) or logical depth (Bennett).  I focus on "gauge-invariant"
because I can then borrow the Faddeev-Popov procedure from quantum
field theory: in essence, one does not count over redundant
descriptions.  I also borrow the idea of regularization from quantum
field theory: when considering systems where infinities occur, it can
be useful to introduce a finite cutoff, and then study the limiting
behavior as the cutoff goes to infinity.  For instance, regulating the
integers shows that the density of primes goes like 1/log(N) - without
the cutoff one can only say that there are a countable number of
primes and composites.  These ideas are well known in theoretical
physics, but perhaps not outside, and I am also using them in a new
setting...

 Let me give a simple example of the use of gauge invariance from the
paper - consider the mathematical factoid: {3 is a prime number}.
This can be re-expressed in an infinite number of different ways: {2+1
is a prime number}, {27^(1/3) is not composite}, etc, etc...  Thus, at
first it seems that just this simple factoid will be counted an
infinite number of times!  But no, follow Faddeev and Popov, and pick
one particular representation (it's fine to use, say, {27^(1/3) is not
composite}, but later we will want to use the most compact
representations when we regularize), and just count this small piece
of information once, which removes all of the redundant descriptions.
To reiterate, we only count over the gauge-invariant information.

 Consider a more complex example, say the Einstein equations: G_ab =
T_ab.  Like "3 is a prime number", they can be expressed in an
infinite number of different ways, but let's pick the most compact
binary representation x_EE (an undecidable problem in general, but say
we get lucky).  Say the most compact encoding takes one million bits.
Basic Kolmogorov complexity would then say that x_EE  contains the
same amount of information as a random sequence r_i one million bits
long - both are not compressible.  But x_EE contains a large amount of
nontrivial, gauge invariant information that would have to be
preserved in alternative representations, while the random sequence
has no internal patterns that must be preserved in different
representations: x_EE has a large amount of effective complexity, and
r_i has none.  Focusing on the gauge-invariant structures thus not
only removes the redundant descriptions, but also removes all of the
random noise, leaving only the "real" information behind.  For
instance, I posit that the uncomputable reals are nothing more than
infinitely long random sequences, which also get removed (along with
the finite random sequences) by the selection of a gauge.

In some computational representation, the real information structures
will thus form a sparse subset among all binary strings.  In the paper
I consider 3 cases - 1) there are a finite number of finitely complex
real information structures (which could be viewed as the null
assumption), 2) there are a infinite number of finitely complex
structures, and 3) there are irreducibly infinitely complex
information structures.  I focus on 1) and 2), with the assumption
that 3) isn't meaningful (i.e. that hypercomputers do not exist).
Even case 2) is extremely large, and it leads to the prediction of
universal observers: observers that continuously evolve in time, so
that they can eventually process arbitrarily complex forms of
information.  The striking fact that a technological singularity may
only be a few de

Re: JOINING: Travis Garrett

[Stephen Paul King]

Hi Travis,


Thank you for joining us. Please prepare to defend your paper. 

Onward!

Stephen

-Original Message- 
From: Travis Garrett 
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 4:10 PM 
To: Everything List 
Subject: JOINING: Travis Garrett 

Hi everybody,

   My name is Travis - I'm currently working as a postdoc at the
Perimeter Institute.  I got an email from Richard Gordon and Evgenii
Rudnyi pointing out that my recent paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2198
is being discussed here, so yeah, I'm happy to join the conversation.
I'll respond to some specific points in the discussion thread, but
what the heck, I'll give an overview of my idea here...

  The idea flows from the assumption that one can do an arbitrarily
good simulation of arbitrarily large regions of the universe inside a
sufficiently powerful computer -- more formally I assume the physical
version of the Church Turing Thesis.  Everything that exists can then
be viewed as different types of information.  The Observer Class
Hypothesis then proposes that observers collectively form by far the
largest set of information, due to the combinatorics that arise from
absorbing information from many different sources (the observers
thereby roughly resemble the power set of the set of all
information).  One thus exists as an observer because it is by far the
most probable form of existence.

  A couple caveats are of crucial importance: when I say information,
I mean non-trivial, gauge-invariant, "real" information, i.e.
information that has a large amount of effective complexity (Gell-Mann
and Lloyd) or logical depth (Bennett).  I focus on "gauge-invariant"
because I can then borrow the Faddeev-Popov procedure from quantum
field theory: in essence, one does not count over redundant
descriptions.  I also borrow the idea of regularization from quantum
field theory: when considering systems where infinities occur, it can
be useful to introduce a finite cutoff, and then study the limiting
behavior as the cutoff goes to infinity.  For instance, regulating the
integers shows that the density of primes goes like 1/log(N) - without
the cutoff one can only say that there are a countable number of
primes and composites.  These ideas are well known in theoretical
physics, but perhaps not outside, and I am also using them in a new
setting...

  Let me give a simple example of the use of gauge invariance from the
paper - consider the mathematical factoid: {3 is a prime number}.
This can be re-expressed in an infinite number of different ways: {2+1
is a prime number}, {27^(1/3) is not composite}, etc, etc...  Thus, at
first it seems that just this simple factoid will be counted an
infinite number of times!  But no, follow Faddeev and Popov, and pick
one particular representation (it's fine to use, say, {27^(1/3) is not
composite}, but later we will want to use the most compact
representations when we regularize), and just count this small piece
of information once, which removes all of the redundant descriptions.
To reiterate, we only count over the gauge-invariant information.

  Consider a more complex example, say the Einstein equations: G_ab =
T_ab.  Like "3 is a prime number", they can be expressed in an
infinite number of different ways, but let's pick the most compact
binary representation x_EE (an undecidable problem in general, but say
we get lucky).  Say the most compact encoding takes one million bits.
Basic Kolmogorov complexity would then say that x_EE  contains the
same amount of information as a random sequence r_i one million bits
long - both are not compressible.  But x_EE contains a large amount of
nontrivial, gauge invariant information that would have to be
preserved in alternative representations, while the random sequence
has no internal patterns that must be preserved in different
representations: x_EE has a large amount of effective complexity, and
r_i has none.  Focusing on the gauge-invariant structures thus not
only removes the redundant descriptions, but also removes all of the
random noise, leaving only the "real" information behind.  For
instance, I posit that the uncomputable reals are nothing more than
infinitely long random sequences, which also get removed (along with
the finite random sequences) by the selection of a gauge.

In some computational representation, the real information structures
will thus form a sparse subset among all binary strings.  In the paper
I consider 3 cases - 1) there are a finite number of finitely complex
real information structures (which could be viewed as the null
assumption), 2) there are a infinite number of finitely complex
structures, and 3) there are irreducibly infinitely complex
information structures.  I focus on 1) and 2), with the assumption
that 3) isn't meaningful (i.e. that hypercomputers do not exist).
Even case 2) is extremely large, and it leads to the prediction of
universal observers: observers that c

Re: JOINING: Travis Garrett

[Travis Garrett]

Hi Russell,

   You'll see that I immediately followed my joining post with an ever-
so-slightly irate response to your comment ;-)  I need to go have
dinner with my family, so let me quickly say that taking existing as
an observer for granted is a very easy thing to do, but it well may
need an explanation :-)

   Sincerely,
  Travis

On Jan 27, 5:18 pm, Russell Standish  wrote:
> Hi Travis,
>
> Welcome to the list. Its great to see some new blood. I did get around
> to reading your paper a few days ago, and had a couple of comments
> which I posted.
>
> 1) Your usage of the term Physic Church-Turing Thesis. What I thought
> you were assuming seemed more accurately captured by Bruno's COMP
> assumption, or Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hyporthesis. For
> instance, Wikipedia, following Piccinini states the PCTT as:
>
> "According to Physical CTT, all physically computable functions are
> Turing-computable".
>
> I guess one can argue about what precisely constitutes a physically
> computable function, but one implication of the PCTT would be that
> real random number generators are impossible, and that beta decay is
> not really random, but pseudo random. This is contradicted by COMP.
>
> But, this is only a debate about nomenclature, not about the worth of
> your paper.
>
> 2) There can only be a countable number of observers, but an
> uncountable number of bits of information, so I was suspicious of your
> Observer Class Hypothesis. However, it looks like I missed your use of
> the Faddeev-Popov procedure, which eliminates most of those uncountable
> bits of information, so the ball is definitely back in my court!
>
> BTW - I don't think the problem you are trying to solve with the OCH
> is a problem that needs solving - the reference class of Anthropic
> Reasoning must always be a subset of the set of observers (or observer
> moments depending on how strong your self-sampling assumption is).
>
> But it would nevertheless be intriguing if the OCH were true, and I
> could see it having other applications. Thanks for the notion.
>
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 01:10:50PM -0800, Travis Garrett wrote:
> > Hi everybody,
>
> >    My name is Travis - I'm currently working as a postdoc at the
> > Perimeter Institute.  I got an email from Richard Gordon and Evgenii
> > Rudnyi pointing out that my recent paper:http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2198
> > is being discussed here, so yeah, I'm happy to join the conversation.
> > I'll respond to some specific points in the discussion thread, but
> > what the heck, I'll give an overview of my idea here...
>
> --
>
> --- -
> Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics                              
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                         hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
> Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> --- -

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Re: JOINING: Travis Garrett

[Russell Standish]

Hi Travis,

Welcome to the list. Its great to see some new blood. I did get around
to reading your paper a few days ago, and had a couple of comments
which I posted.

1) Your usage of the term Physic Church-Turing Thesis. What I thought
you were assuming seemed more accurately captured by Bruno's COMP
assumption, or Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hyporthesis. For
instance, Wikipedia, following Piccinini states the PCTT as:

"According to Physical CTT, all physically computable functions are
Turing-computable". 

I guess one can argue about what precisely constitutes a physically
computable function, but one implication of the PCTT would be that
real random number generators are impossible, and that beta decay is
not really random, but pseudo random. This is contradicted by COMP.

But, this is only a debate about nomenclature, not about the worth of
your paper.

2) There can only be a countable number of observers, but an
uncountable number of bits of information, so I was suspicious of your
Observer Class Hypothesis. However, it looks like I missed your use of
the Faddeev-Popov procedure, which eliminates most of those uncountable
bits of information, so the ball is definitely back in my court!

BTW - I don't think the problem you are trying to solve with the OCH
is a problem that needs solving - the reference class of Anthropic
Reasoning must always be a subset of the set of observers (or observer
moments depending on how strong your self-sampling assumption is).

But it would nevertheless be intriguing if the OCH were true, and I
could see it having other applications. Thanks for the notion.

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 01:10:50PM -0800, Travis Garrett wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> 
>My name is Travis - I'm currently working as a postdoc at the
> Perimeter Institute.  I got an email from Richard Gordon and Evgenii
> Rudnyi pointing out that my recent paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2198
> is being discussed here, so yeah, I'm happy to join the conversation.
> I'll respond to some specific points in the discussion thread, but
> what the heck, I'll give an overview of my idea here...
> 

-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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JOINING: Travis Garrett

[Travis Garrett]

Hi everybody,

   My name is Travis - I'm currently working as a postdoc at the
Perimeter Institute.  I got an email from Richard Gordon and Evgenii
Rudnyi pointing out that my recent paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2198
is being discussed here, so yeah, I'm happy to join the conversation.
I'll respond to some specific points in the discussion thread, but
what the heck, I'll give an overview of my idea here...

  The idea flows from the assumption that one can do an arbitrarily
good simulation of arbitrarily large regions of the universe inside a
sufficiently powerful computer -- more formally I assume the physical
version of the Church Turing Thesis.  Everything that exists can then
be viewed as different types of information.  The Observer Class
Hypothesis then proposes that observers collectively form by far the
largest set of information, due to the combinatorics that arise from
absorbing information from many different sources (the observers
thereby roughly resemble the power set of the set of all
information).  One thus exists as an observer because it is by far the
most probable form of existence.

  A couple caveats are of crucial importance: when I say information,
I mean non-trivial, gauge-invariant, "real" information, i.e.
information that has a large amount of effective complexity (Gell-Mann
and Lloyd) or logical depth (Bennett).  I focus on "gauge-invariant"
because I can then borrow the Faddeev-Popov procedure from quantum
field theory: in essence, one does not count over redundant
descriptions.  I also borrow the idea of regularization from quantum
field theory: when considering systems where infinities occur, it can
be useful to introduce a finite cutoff, and then study the limiting
behavior as the cutoff goes to infinity.  For instance, regulating the
integers shows that the density of primes goes like 1/log(N) - without
the cutoff one can only say that there are a countable number of
primes and composites.  These ideas are well known in theoretical
physics, but perhaps not outside, and I am also using them in a new
setting...

  Let me give a simple example of the use of gauge invariance from the
paper - consider the mathematical factoid: {3 is a prime number}.
This can be re-expressed in an infinite number of different ways: {2+1
is a prime number}, {27^(1/3) is not composite}, etc, etc...  Thus, at
first it seems that just this simple factoid will be counted an
infinite number of times!  But no, follow Faddeev and Popov, and pick
one particular representation (it's fine to use, say, {27^(1/3) is not
composite}, but later we will want to use the most compact
representations when we regularize), and just count this small piece
of information once, which removes all of the redundant descriptions.
To reiterate, we only count over the gauge-invariant information.

  Consider a more complex example, say the Einstein equations: G_ab =
T_ab.  Like "3 is a prime number", they can be expressed in an
infinite number of different ways, but let's pick the most compact
binary representation x_EE (an undecidable problem in general, but say
we get lucky).  Say the most compact encoding takes one million bits.
Basic Kolmogorov complexity would then say that x_EE  contains the
same amount of information as a random sequence r_i one million bits
long - both are not compressible.  But x_EE contains a large amount of
nontrivial, gauge invariant information that would have to be
preserved in alternative representations, while the random sequence
has no internal patterns that must be preserved in different
representations: x_EE has a large amount of effective complexity, and
r_i has none.  Focusing on the gauge-invariant structures thus not
only removes the redundant descriptions, but also removes all of the
random noise, leaving only the "real" information behind.  For
instance, I posit that the uncomputable reals are nothing more than
infinitely long random sequences, which also get removed (along with
the finite random sequences) by the selection of a gauge.

In some computational representation, the real information structures
will thus form a sparse subset among all binary strings.  In the paper
I consider 3 cases - 1) there are a finite number of finitely complex
real information structures (which could be viewed as the null
assumption), 2) there are a infinite number of finitely complex
structures, and 3) there are irreducibly infinitely complex
information structures.  I focus on 1) and 2), with the assumption
that 3) isn't meaningful (i.e. that hypercomputers do not exist).
Even case 2) is extremely large, and it leads to the prediction of
universal observers: observers that continuously evolve in time, so
that they can eventually process arbitrarily complex forms of
information.  The striking fact that a technological singularity may
only be a few decades away lends support to this extravagant idea...

  Well anyways, that's probably enough for now.  I am interested in
seeing what people think of 

Re: JOINING

[Kevin Fischer]

Hi, have you read Tegmark's related papers?
http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html Also his popular versions are
worth reading, as he is one of the best popular science writers I have ever
read, and the versions on his web site are not dumbed down by editorial
control.

Schmidhuber has some similar ideas and approaches the subject from a
different background. http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/computeruniverse.html

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 4:25 AM, Sriram  wrote:

> Hai to all
> I'm Sriram Subramanian.
> Doing Ph.D in Experimental physics(thin film formation).
> I'm very much interested in the concept of TOE. And i'm very strange
> to this theoretical concept.
> Kindly tell what are the basics to study
>
> Thanks
>
> --
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> .
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>
>

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JOINING

[Sriram]

Hai to all
I'm Sriram Subramanian.
Doing Ph.D in Experimental physics(thin film formation).
I'm very much interested in the concept of TOE. And i'm very strange
to this theoretical concept.
Kindly tell what are the basics to study

Thanks

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JOINING post

[Skeletori]

Hi! My academic background is an MSc in computer science including
lots of math, plus some years of graduate studies and AI research. I'm
a very rational person (with Asperger's) and am interested in many
intellectual topics.

I subscribed to the multiverse idea a long time ago by following this
simple line of thought: if something exists, is there a reason for
something else not to exist? I answered no and concluded that
everything exists :).

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JOINING post

[Ed Rietman]

I am new to this group so I thought I give my background.

I have a BS in physics and chemistry and a BA in philosophy (UNC), an
MS in materials science (Stevens Inst), a PhD in physics (Southampton)
and I have completed ~70 additional hours of graduate studies in
computer science, mathematics, chemistry, bioinformatics, and cell
biology at collages and universities scattered around the North East
(Fairleigh Dickinson Uiversity, North Eastern University, UMass,
Lowell)

I am on LinkedIn, you can look me up (Edward Rietman) I will be happy
to connect. I currently work as a research fellow at Dana Farber
Cancer Institute (DFCI) and I have an appointment at Harvard Medical
School, Genetics Department. I am also Chief Innovation Officer at a
startup involving nonlinear acoustics and cross-disciplinary physics
for developing disruptive technology.

I have written 7 books on neural networks, parallel processing,
computer modeling of chaos, artificial life, and nanotechnology. I
have published as author or coauthor over 100 technical papers ranging
from crystallography, to polymer chemistry, solid state physics,
neural network hardware, robotics, machine learning, factory
automation, 

I have 10 issued patents and many pending.

I worked at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ for 20 years. Then I worked
at Starlab in Brussels followed by several private military-funded
think tanks. My current work involves theoretical biology in a Systems
Biology group at DFCI. I am applying, or at least attempting to apply,
group theory and category theory to systems biology with the, rather
ambitious, goal of understanding life. I am not attempting to
replicate Rosen's, excellent, work.

I read a lot on many subjects. I once got rejected from a job at GE
Research Center because I am, in their words, too
interdisciplinary. :-)




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Re: Joining Post

[Gevin Giorbran]

Brent Meeker wrote:

> Actually it collapses before, see quant-ph/0402146 v1.  It is shown that
> in a Young's slit experiment with C70 buckyballs, the interference
> fringes disappear when the buckyballs are sufficiently heated to radiate
> some IR photons.  No observer is needed, only the interaction with the
> environment.

Decoherence doesn't defeat quantum uncertainty, it partially hides the
multiplicity of other worlds due to thermal connections of the
environment. It results inevitably in tracing any single history.
Decoherence is why Schrödinger placed the cat in a box, to isolate the
experiment from the external observer. The colleague walking in after
I have opened the box to observe the cat is also disconnected from the
experiment in my description. For them the room is the box.
Decoherence still applies to each history. It helps to remember that
where Schrödinger's cat paradox shows how the uncertainty of a single
electron can be amplified to produce widely diverse timelines,
normally the uncertainty of trillions upon trillions of microscopic
events entangle to construct a path of history. Decoherence is like
placing a mirror in with the cat, the cat doesn't see its own phase
space, each branching time line observes a near classical history,
while the global superposition of worlds exists beyond the realm of
measurement.

> "Puppet" implies you are pulling the strings.  So can you bend the
> universe to your will?

I had previously implied a hand puppet, and I was considering the
implications of sampling the whole set of many worlds, as if they all
exist simultaneously, and in each proceeding moment we find ourselves
in one particular universe. This places in question the individuality
and will of "observed others" apart from the probabilistic selection
of the experienced world. The hand in the puppet is the universe
itself. I am undecided on if the observer can bend reality. I don't
rule such things out based on skepticism. An individual's will would
largely be a product of their personal history, and thus physical
events or states, so I do expect a considerable measure of
entanglement between the mind/brain and the environment.

I will be un-subscribing from this list.


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Re: Joining Post

[Brent Meeker]

Gevin Giorbran wrote:
> On Jan 3, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>  Is hurting or make the puppet suffer morally correct with your position ?
>> If it is not, then this is strange since they are only puppets and you
>> *are*...(means you can't hurt them because they aren't) This is simply
>> sollipsism and (un)fortunately completely circular.
>>
>> Also as you acknowledge other "pilots" existence in "other" universe, how is
>> this different than acknowledging simply the existence of other people ?
>> 
>
> Günther Greindl wrote:
>   
>> This is the question of why _I_ experience the world as I do and not the
>> other worlds.
>> 
>
>
> This is not the identity crisis question of why am I not that person
> over there, nor is it circular, or solipsism (although if true it
> could lead to a philosophy of solipsism).
>
> This is basic quantum theory applied to the macro-world. Ever since
> Schrödinger disapprovingly amplified the uncertainty of atomic decay
> and showed that quantum uncertainty extends to the macro-world, this
> issue has been apparent. I am certain this "observer over observed"
> issue has been discussed before. Someone has mentioned that John
> Wheeler described this, describing a "free floating" observer that
> dictates reality all the way back to the big bang. He just didn't
> discuss the issue of pilots and puppets.
>
> In the instant I observe the contents of the box the uncertainty
> collapses, 

Actually it collapses before, see quant-ph/0402146 v1.  It is shown that 
in a Young's slit experiment with C70 buckyballs, the interference 
fringes disappear when the buckyballs are sufficiently heated to radiate 
some IR photons.  No observer is needed, only the interaction with the 
environment.

> however, the colleague who walks in the room one second
> later in pilot form is not subject to my observation, for them the
> outcome of the event is still uncertain until they open the lab door
> and look in, at which point they branch into two futures defined by
> different pasts, me in tears (I love cats) or the cat alive and me
> happy. Their observation of me (tears or jeers) will correspond to
> their observation of the cat. HOWEVER, the colleague I observe (their
> observation) is predetermined (made measurably deterministic) by my
> earlier observation. Their observation will correspond to my
> observation, in a sense making them a puppet of the universe I
> observe.
>   

"Puppet" implies you are pulling the strings.  So can you bend the 
universe to your will?

Brent Meeker



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Re: Joining Post

[Gevin Giorbran]

On Jan 3, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
> Hi,
>  Is hurting or make the puppet suffer morally correct with your position ?
> If it is not, then this is strange since they are only puppets and you
> *are*...(means you can't hurt them because they aren't) This is simply
> sollipsism and (un)fortunately completely circular.
>
> Also as you acknowledge other "pilots" existence in "other" universe, how is
> this different than acknowledging simply the existence of other people ?

Günther Greindl wrote:
>
> This is the question of why _I_ experience the world as I do and not the
> other worlds.


This is not the identity crisis question of why am I not that person
over there, nor is it circular, or solipsism (although if true it
could lead to a philosophy of solipsism).

This is basic quantum theory applied to the macro-world. Ever since
Schrödinger disapprovingly amplified the uncertainty of atomic decay
and showed that quantum uncertainty extends to the macro-world, this
issue has been apparent. I am certain this "observer over observed"
issue has been discussed before. Someone has mentioned that John
Wheeler described this, describing a "free floating" observer that
dictates reality all the way back to the big bang. He just didn't
discuss the issue of pilots and puppets.

In the instant I observe the contents of the box the uncertainty
collapses, however, the colleague who walks in the room one second
later in pilot form is not subject to my observation, for them the
outcome of the event is still uncertain until they open the lab door
and look in, at which point they branch into two futures defined by
different pasts, me in tears (I love cats) or the cat alive and me
happy. Their observation of me (tears or jeers) will correspond to
their observation of the cat. HOWEVER, the colleague I observe (their
observation) is predetermined (made measurably deterministic) by my
earlier observation. Their observation will correspond to my
observation, in a sense making them a puppet of the universe I
observe.

It helps to imagine a person inside the box wearing a gas mask
watching the cat. They don't see a quantum uncertainty or a
probability cloud. But from your perspective outside the box the
indeterminacy of the cat as dead or alive now extends to what the
person in the mask observes. There are necessarily two copies of the
observer inside the box. When you open the box you connect to one of
them.

Also, the cat experiment box can have two doors and be placed in
between two rooms, so that two observers in different rooms open their
own door at the same time to see the outcome of the event. The outcome
of one observer in one room has no influence on the outcome of the
other. But having observed an outcome, each observer interacts with
the colleague who observes the same outcome. This is a more
complicated example of the EPR paradox, i.e., spooky action at a
distance, or one outcome effecting a remote other outcome.

The floating observer is constantly sampling a probability landscape
governed by the whole of what is possible for a given event or
situation. Each observation rules the entire scope of their o-region
by turning the uncertainty of infinite possibilities into a finite
observation. If lab personnel walk in every ten minutes each branches
into both dead-cat / live-cat time lines as they learn of the cats
demise. Same applies to what's behind every door in the macro-world.
Sub-atomic decisions add up and trace forward to extremely varied
possible worlds. Until we pick up and read the newspaper there is no
definite news. We still live with the uncertainty of history back to
the big bang every time we view deeper into the universe, or discover
other planets around stars. There isn't just one world out there, or
one history to select from, just as there isn't one future.

Observations of what are naturally assumed to be other observers (how
they response to stimuli, behavior, belief systems, intelligence,
individual spontaneity) are inevitably subject to the same sampling
process which decides if the cyanide canister has been broken. There
of course might be a great deal of selection bias for various reasons,
in the same way what is observed corresponds to the laws of nature.
There is certainly room for Karma based upon the same symmetries that
dictate conservations, forces, laws and constants.

So suppose we do put a colleague in Schrödinger's box instead of the
cat without the gas mask. The first sampling decides if they are dead
or alive when we open the box. A second sampling is of how they react
to having been put in the box and experimented on in a life or death
situation. For the survivor, there is a very wide but definite range
of possible reactions, anger, horror, crying, nervous breakdown,
hidden resentment, disinterest, objectivity, laughter, excitement,
exhilaration, enlightenment. Considering how a thousand different
colleagues would react, there are distinct probabilities, let's say
25% anger, 15% horror,

Re: Joining Post

[Quentin Anciaux]

Hi,

Is hurting or make the puppet suffer morally correct with your position ?

If it is not, then this is strange since they are only puppets and you 
*are*...(means you can't hurt them because they aren't) This is simply 
sollipsism and (un)fortunately completely circular.

Also as you acknowledge other "pilots" existence in "other" universe, how is 
this different than acknowledging simply the existence of other people ? 
(same existence as your)

Quentin Anciaux

Le Thursday 03 January 2008 05:47:40 Gevin Giorbran, vous avez écrit :
> Three years of college, no degrees, no status. Left school and started
> writing, and authored three books about the existence and structure of
> all possible universes, including "Exploring A Many Worlds Universe"
> in 1997, arguing as the main theme in each book that our universe ends
> in finite time (est. 120 billion years in '94) as expansion stretches
> space perfectly flat, this causing time to end at a ground state of
> absolute zero. The books were legally copyrighted in '94, '96, and
> '97, all prior to 1998 when we discovered the expansion of the
> universe is in fact accelerating us towards absolute zero. When I
> wrote my first three books the mainstream of science considered a
> finite end of time at zero to be impossible, and today the third law
> still states it cannot happen, but old science often gets in the way
> of new science. The recent measurements of acceleration indicate the
> (phantom) dark energy density causing acceleration is increasing,
> which makes the big rip scenario the leading future candidate.
> Caldwell describes the possibility of time as ending at the "ultimate
> singularity" and Sean Carroll is stating "our universe ends as empty
> space" as if this is now obvious. I agree, but further state there is
> no zero or a beginning from nothing in our past, the ultimate zero
> exists only in our future. The universe has pronouncedly been
> expanding at zero since time began because zero is the ultimate "great
> attractor", the very cause of time. My prediction that time ends at
> zero was based upon a bounded model of all possible states, which also
> predicts structure or limitations of the greater multiverse. My fourth
> book, "Everything Forever: Learning to See Timelessness", explains the
> governing role a cosmic zero plays in the evolution of all universes
> and all life.
>
> Thoughts of late:
>
> I believe there necessarily is only one "pilot" observer in each
> universe or O-region. All third party observers in each pilot's
> experience are subject to quantum mechanical sampling. The members of
> this Everything-list from my particular experience are a probabilistic
> sampling of the ultimate whole of what is possible considering this
> scenario. Any feedback I receive will correspond to that same spectrum
> of what is possible, therein reflecting a sampling of personalities,
> knowledge, beliefs, responses, in accordance with what are most
> probably found in a scientific discussion group about many worlds. So
> am I the only real observer in this universe?
>
> The name of the movie escapes me where Dustin Hoffman uses a bed sheet
> to portray parts of a single unified universe. His hand moves from one
> place to another under the sheet, as he says this is the Eiffel tower,
> this is you, this is me, this is a tree. It is all just one universe
> he says, which suggests we are all just puppets of that universe. True
> at least until you consider how quantum mechanics breaks the universe
> up into discreet states, and even divides apart observers into
> separate universes.
>
> We can only converse with the puppets of a quantum mechanical
> universe. Pilots cannot communicate with one another, since observers
> cannot communicate independent of governing probabilities. The only
> saving grace is if all possible pilots and their O-regions exist, so
> real pilots at least correspond to the quantum puppets of an observers
> experience.
>
> Sorry, yes you are a puppet, well perhaps the reader of this post
> isn't a puppet, but the responses I observe will be from puppets,
> while only real pilots are left to question if the set of possible
> pilots is more or less restricted than the spectrum of people a pilot
> experiences in the quantum world adjacent one's consciousness.
>
> Are pilots and puppets identical and thus existentially the same?
>
> 


-- 
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

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Re: Joining Post

[Günther Greindl]

Hi,

> Sorry, yes you are a puppet, well perhaps the reader of this post
> isn't a puppet, but the responses I observe will be from puppets,
> while only real pilots are left to question if the set of possible
> pilots is more or less restricted than the spectrum of people a pilot
> experiences in the quantum world adjacent one's consciousness.

This is the question of why _I_ experience the world as I do and not the 
other worlds.

If one assumes MWI - or better (Bill's wording): Many Objects 
Interpretation, of course every person will split into many persons (as 
the quantum states in his body decohere).

So, we are all pilots _and_ puppets (I guess that was what you were 
saying) - depending from the point of view.

And that leads to the "measure" question: you will more likely 
experience worlds which have greater measure.

Is that what you are asking?

Regards,
Günther


-- 
Günther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/

Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/
Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org

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Re: Joining Post

[Tom Caylor]

On Jan 2, 9:47 pm, "Gevin Giorbran" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Three years of college, no degrees, no status. Left school and started
> writing, and authored three books about the existence and structure of
> all possible universes, including "Exploring A Many Worlds Universe"
> in 1997, arguing as the main theme in each book that our universe ends
> in finite time (est. 120 billion years in '94) as expansion stretches
> space perfectly flat, this causing time to end at a ground state of
> absolute zero. The books were legally copyrighted in '94, '96, and
> '97, all prior to 1998 when we discovered the expansion of the
> universe is in fact accelerating us towards absolute zero. When I
> wrote my first three books the mainstream of science considered a
> finite end of time at zero to be impossible, and today the third law
> still states it cannot happen, but old science often gets in the way
> of new science. The recent measurements of acceleration indicate the
> (phantom) dark energy density causing acceleration is increasing,
> which makes the big rip scenario the leading future candidate.
> Caldwell describes the possibility of time as ending at the "ultimate
> singularity" and Sean Carroll is stating "our universe ends as empty
> space" as if this is now obvious. I agree, but further state there is
> no zero or a beginning from nothing in our past, the ultimate zero
> exists only in our future. The universe has pronouncedly been
> expanding at zero since time began because zero is the ultimate "great
> attractor", the very cause of time. My prediction that time ends at
> zero was based upon a bounded model of all possible states, which also
> predicts structure or limitations of the greater multiverse. My fourth
> book, "Everything Forever: Learning to See Timelessness", explains the
> governing role a cosmic zero plays in the evolution of all universes
> and all life.
>
> Thoughts of late:
>
> I believe there necessarily is only one "pilot" observer in each
> universe or O-region. All third party observers in each pilot's
> experience are subject to quantum mechanical sampling. The members of
> this Everything-list from my particular experience are a probabilistic
> sampling of the ultimate whole of what is possible considering this
> scenario. Any feedback I receive will correspond to that same spectrum
> of what is possible, therein reflecting a sampling of personalities,
> knowledge, beliefs, responses, in accordance with what are most
> probably found in a scientific discussion group about many worlds. So
> am I the only real observer in this universe?
>
> The name of the movie escapes me where Dustin Hoffman uses a bed sheet
> to portray parts of a single unified universe. His hand moves from one
> place to another under the sheet, as he says this is the Eiffel tower,
> this is you, this is me, this is a tree. It is all just one universe
> he says, which suggests we are all just puppets of that universe. True
> at least until you consider how quantum mechanics breaks the universe
> up into discreet states, and even divides apart observers into
> separate universes.
>
> We can only converse with the puppets of a quantum mechanical
> universe. Pilots cannot communicate with one another, since observers
> cannot communicate independent of governing probabilities. The only
> saving grace is if all possible pilots and their O-regions exist, so
> real pilots at least correspond to the quantum puppets of an observers
> experience.
>
> Sorry, yes you are a puppet, well perhaps the reader of this post
> isn't a puppet, but the responses I observe will be from puppets,
> while only real pilots are left to question if the set of possible
> pilots is more or less restricted than the spectrum of people a pilot
> experiences in the quantum world adjacent one's consciousness.
>
> Are pilots and puppets identical and thus existentially the same?


Am I a pilot or a puppet?

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Re: joining

[Russell Standish]

Welcome. I look forward to some stimulating discussions in the future.

On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 10:18:02AM -0800, Argand wrote:
> 
> 
> This is my joining post!
> I am a lecturer in mathematics and physics at a senior school in
> England
> my background is B.Sc and Master of Philosophy degrees in mathematical
> physics, the latter was by research in cosmology and general
> relativity - but this was some time ago.  I have published a few
> papers which relate to physical eschatology,  particularly  the
> simulation argument of Bostrom and the Omega point theory of Tipler.
> I am interested in how these ideas, along with the many worlds
> interpretation could fit together in the quantum theory of immortality.
> 
-- 


A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: JOINING post

[Youness Ayaita]

Thanks for your answers to my joining post! Dear Russell, your book
"Theory of Nothing" has overwhelmed me, it's a fantastic work. Several
months ago, I slowly began writing a book on the theory that
everything exists (in German) -- but I will not go on because your
book seems to be so great and complete, dealing with so many different
aspects, that my project would have never been able to compare with
it.

I do not know into which direction my thinking will evolve. But I'm
convinced that your book will always serve as the basic reference for
works linked to the theory of the everything ensemble.

Youness


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Re: JOINING post

[Russell Standish]

On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 12:40:08AM -0700, Youness Ayaita wrote:
> 
> Hello everyone.
> 
> Yesterday I found this list. I am still surprised and pleased that my
> old ideas are also developed and discussed by others than myself.
> Since my thought is only little influenced by the literature, I hope
> that I will be able to give some new perspectives in future
> discussions.
> 
> Youness

Welcome to the list! We've been going about ten years now, and had
some extremely stimulating discussions, of which only a smattering has
ended up in the published literature. I look forward to hearing some
new ideas. My book, Theory of Nothing is probably still the best
summary of the list's discussion up until circa beginning of 2006, and
is available as a free download fropm my website, or as a hardcopy
from Amazon.com. There have been some interesting topics discussed
since that time, of course. We tried to get a Wiki going to at least
sort out definitional matters, but I found myself the only
contributer, so it is not in a healthy state.

Cheers

-- 


A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: JOINING post

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Youness,

Le 31-août-07, à 09:40, Youness Ayaita wrote :

>
> Hello everyone.

You are welcome.


>
> My name's Youness Ayaita and currently I'm a graduate student of
> physics and mathematics at Heidelberg University, with special
> interests in the field of theoretical quantum physics and in the
> question how it comes to our specific laws of nature.
>
> In the beginning of the year 2003 (I was as a sixteen-year-old)
> philosophical considerations led me to the idea that possibly
> everything exists. Independently from everything that was said or
> written by others working on the issue, I went on developing my
> theories and found different justifications for the everything-
> hypothesis (some of which are substantially different from the
> mathematicalist approach or the motivation by information theory). In
> particular, I was interested in the implications of the everything-
> hypothesis for physics, or to be more precise, for the expected
> structure of the world that we experience. I asked the question
> whether it is even possible (in principle) to mathematically deduce
> properties of the physical world from the everything-hypothesis (if
> the answer is yes, then this could provide some kind of experimental
> test of the everything-hypothesis, making it falsifiable in a vague--
> though not exact--sense). In this context, I found several plausible
> arguments and I explored ideas how to capture mathematically the
> Everything.


Nice.


>
> Until the end of the year 2005, I had no idea that other people were
> seriously working on the issue. But then, I read of David Lewis and
> bought his book "On the Plurality of Worlds".


A good one. Note that David Lewis has evolved on his critics of its 
erzatz world. Eventually he took those world seriously. I thionk he got 
the idea that universal machine cannot really distinguish erzats world 
and "real" worlds.




> Later, in 2006, I was
> interested in the philosophy of quantum physics and became a supporter
> of the Everett interpretation. I read recent publications by Wallace,
> Saunders, Zurek, Zeh, Deutsch, Tegmark and others.


Nice stuff.




>
> Yesterday I found this list. I am still surprised and pleased that my
> old ideas are also developed and discussed by others than myself.
> Since my thought is only little influenced by the literature, I hope
> that I will be able to give some new perspectives in future
> discussions.
>

Don't hesitate.


Best,

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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JOINING post

[Youness Ayaita]

Hello everyone.

My name's Youness Ayaita and currently I'm a graduate student of
physics and mathematics at Heidelberg University, with special
interests in the field of theoretical quantum physics and in the
question how it comes to our specific laws of nature.

In the beginning of the year 2003 (I was as a sixteen-year-old)
philosophical considerations led me to the idea that possibly
everything exists. Independently from everything that was said or
written by others working on the issue, I went on developing my
theories and found different justifications for the everything-
hypothesis (some of which are substantially different from the
mathematicalist approach or the motivation by information theory). In
particular, I was interested in the implications of the everything-
hypothesis for physics, or to be more precise, for the expected
structure of the world that we experience. I asked the question
whether it is even possible (in principle) to mathematically deduce
properties of the physical world from the everything-hypothesis (if
the answer is yes, then this could provide some kind of experimental
test of the everything-hypothesis, making it falsifiable in a vague--
though not exact--sense). In this context, I found several plausible
arguments and I explored ideas how to capture mathematically the
Everything.

Until the end of the year 2005, I had no idea that other people were
seriously working on the issue. But then, I read of David Lewis and
bought his book "On the Plurality of Worlds". Later, in 2006, I was
interested in the philosophy of quantum physics and became a supporter
of the Everett interpretation. I read recent publications by Wallace,
Saunders, Zurek, Zeh, Deutsch, Tegmark and others.

Yesterday I found this list. I am still surprised and pleased that my
old ideas are also developed and discussed by others than myself.
Since my thought is only little influenced by the literature, I hope
that I will be able to give some new perspectives in future
discussions.

Youness


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Re: Belated joining post

[David Nyman]

On Jun 27, 7:41 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> you are necessarily delittantish, for there is no profession
> for it!

None indeed.  But for the amateur, all is done for love.

Cheers

D


> You are psychic...I was going to ask for a bio!
>
> it is refreshing to find a computer scientist that honestly faces the
> brute biological reality of messy neuro-cells and their cognitive
> faculties and really lets it speak its story ... one more complex than
> mere symbol manipulation ...As an engineer I admit to the same
> experience... except I am going to build the AGI after the fashion of
> the experience thus obtained... dilettantry is not an option!...
> although if you are a multidisciplinary type (as it seems you
> areyou are necessarily delittantish, for there is no profession
> for it!
>
> cheers
> col
>
> Quoting David Nyman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>
>
> > Recent dialogues with Russell, plus discovering and finding helpful
> > previous joining posts, prompts me to post this for reference
> > purposes.
>
> > I was born in 1950 in Glasgow Scotland of Anglo-Scottish parents, and
> > come from Hungarian, Middle Eastern, Russian, and Polish ancestry
> > insofar as I can trace it.  Mixed, anyway.
>
> > My formal academic background is also best described as 'mixed', but
> > early on I always felt a bit inadequate compared to my teachers, who
> > seemed to just 'know' the 'answers' somehow, because they wrote them
> > straight on to the blackboard.  Myself, I had to 'puzzle' them out by
> > something like trial and error.  Also, their 'explanations' seemed to
> > lead only to more questions.  This exasperated my teachers.  One day
> > (I guess I must have been about 9)  I read a book of logic problems
> > that not only contained the answers, but the author's account of how
> > he'd reached them.  Turns out he'd used trial and error!  I remember
> > it dawned on me like a bolt of lightning: "Everybody thinks like
> > this!"  And thus reassured, I went on in this way.
>
> > There's a corollary to this tale.  Many years later, I attended a
> > seminar where the neuroscientist Karl Pribram was the principal
> > presenter.  I was so stimulated by the dialogue that I 'kidnapped' him
> > afterwards by giving him a lift to the house where we'd both been
> > invited to dinner.  As he sat wearily in the passenger seat, I rambled
> > on about this and that, and after a while this led to my 'sharing' my
> > great 'Everybody thinks like that' insight.  "You're wrong." he said,
> > and sank back into torpor.  My heart sank.  Then he sighed, and said:
> > "Only people who can think at all, think like that."
>
> > My professional career spans 35+ years in computer systems development
> > in the private sector, from machine code and plug-board days, through
> > assembler and a wide variety of high-level languages.   The hands-on
> > part spanned more than 20 years and I worked originally in commercial
> > applications development for systems vendors, focusing on elements of
> > operating systems and failure and recovery methods.  I developed early
> > versions of 'net-change' manufacturing planning and forecasting
> > systems, and from 1989, was an early participant in the nascent on-
> > line (originally phone-based) retail financial sector. I became Head
> > of Systems Architecture and Head of Information Analysis for the first
> > UK on-line bank, and Head of IT for an on-line retail insurer.  These
> > days, I do part time IT and business consultancy, and dabble in topics
> > like those on this list.  I've now achieved the status I've always
> > sought: self-employed dilettante.
>
> > I can't recall exactly when my interest in AI and 'mind body' issues
> > began, but it was re-stimulated by John Searle's ideas as presented in
> > the 1984 BBC Reith Lectures, which got me furiously thinking and
> > reading about functionalism and then-current mind-brain theories like
> > Pribram's Holonomic theory.  I reached a vague realisation that
> > functionalism was incompatible with materialism, which is why I had a
> > start of recognition when I encountered Bruno's arguments.  But I've
> > really spent the intervening period just 'dilettanting' around the
> > related areas - philosophy of mind, epistemology, QM, cosmology,
> > Darwinism, etc. - as my enthusiasm and energy waxes and wanes.
>
> > I've read or skimmed quite a lot of t

Re: Belated joining post

[c . hales]

You are psychic...I was going to ask for a bio!

it is refreshing to find a computer scientist that honestly faces the  
brute biological reality of messy neuro-cells and their cognitive  
faculties and really lets it speak its story ... one more complex than  
mere symbol manipulation ...As an engineer I admit to the same  
experience... except I am going to build the AGI after the fashion of  
the experience thus obtained... dilettantry is not an option!...  
although if you are a multidisciplinary type (as it seems you  
areyou are necessarily delittantish, for there is no profession  
for it!

cheers
col




Quoting David Nyman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

>
> Recent dialogues with Russell, plus discovering and finding helpful
> previous joining posts, prompts me to post this for reference
> purposes.
>
> I was born in 1950 in Glasgow Scotland of Anglo-Scottish parents, and
> come from Hungarian, Middle Eastern, Russian, and Polish ancestry
> insofar as I can trace it.  Mixed, anyway.
>
> My formal academic background is also best described as 'mixed', but
> early on I always felt a bit inadequate compared to my teachers, who
> seemed to just 'know' the 'answers' somehow, because they wrote them
> straight on to the blackboard.  Myself, I had to 'puzzle' them out by
> something like trial and error.  Also, their 'explanations' seemed to
> lead only to more questions.  This exasperated my teachers.  One day
> (I guess I must have been about 9)  I read a book of logic problems
> that not only contained the answers, but the author's account of how
> he'd reached them.  Turns out he'd used trial and error!  I remember
> it dawned on me like a bolt of lightning: "Everybody thinks like
> this!"  And thus reassured, I went on in this way.
>
> There's a corollary to this tale.  Many years later, I attended a
> seminar where the neuroscientist Karl Pribram was the principal
> presenter.  I was so stimulated by the dialogue that I 'kidnapped' him
> afterwards by giving him a lift to the house where we'd both been
> invited to dinner.  As he sat wearily in the passenger seat, I rambled
> on about this and that, and after a while this led to my 'sharing' my
> great 'Everybody thinks like that' insight.  "You're wrong." he said,
> and sank back into torpor.  My heart sank.  Then he sighed, and said:
> "Only people who can think at all, think like that."
>
> My professional career spans 35+ years in computer systems development
> in the private sector, from machine code and plug-board days, through
> assembler and a wide variety of high-level languages.   The hands-on
> part spanned more than 20 years and I worked originally in commercial
> applications development for systems vendors, focusing on elements of
> operating systems and failure and recovery methods.  I developed early
> versions of 'net-change' manufacturing planning and forecasting
> systems, and from 1989, was an early participant in the nascent on-
> line (originally phone-based) retail financial sector. I became Head
> of Systems Architecture and Head of Information Analysis for the first
> UK on-line bank, and Head of IT for an on-line retail insurer.  These
> days, I do part time IT and business consultancy, and dabble in topics
> like those on this list.  I've now achieved the status I've always
> sought: self-employed dilettante.
>
> I can't recall exactly when my interest in AI and 'mind body' issues
> began, but it was re-stimulated by John Searle's ideas as presented in
> the 1984 BBC Reith Lectures, which got me furiously thinking and
> reading about functionalism and then-current mind-brain theories like
> Pribram's Holonomic theory.  I reached a vague realisation that
> functionalism was incompatible with materialism, which is why I had a
> start of recognition when I encountered Bruno's arguments.  But I've
> really spent the intervening period just 'dilettanting' around the
> related areas - philosophy of mind, epistemology, QM, cosmology,
> Darwinism, etc. - as my enthusiasm and energy waxes and wanes.
>
> I've read or skimmed quite a lot of the book list others have
> mentioned, but definitely need more rigour on the math and logic
> background.  The existence of forums like this one has more or less
> kept my marriage intact when it might not have survived many further
> attempts to 'innocently' subvert ordinary conversations into
> 'epistomology' or some such nonsense.
>
> A few books that have triggered something or other, or that I often
> return to:
>
> The Fabric of Reality (Deutsch)
> The

Belated joining post

[David Nyman]

Recent dialogues with Russell, plus discovering and finding helpful
previous joining posts, prompts me to post this for reference
purposes.

I was born in 1950 in Glasgow Scotland of Anglo-Scottish parents, and
come from Hungarian, Middle Eastern, Russian, and Polish ancestry
insofar as I can trace it.  Mixed, anyway.

My formal academic background is also best described as 'mixed', but
early on I always felt a bit inadequate compared to my teachers, who
seemed to just 'know' the 'answers' somehow, because they wrote them
straight on to the blackboard.  Myself, I had to 'puzzle' them out by
something like trial and error.  Also, their 'explanations' seemed to
lead only to more questions.  This exasperated my teachers.  One day
(I guess I must have been about 9)  I read a book of logic problems
that not only contained the answers, but the author's account of how
he'd reached them.  Turns out he'd used trial and error!  I remember
it dawned on me like a bolt of lightning: "Everybody thinks like
this!"  And thus reassured, I went on in this way.

There's a corollary to this tale.  Many years later, I attended a
seminar where the neuroscientist Karl Pribram was the principal
presenter.  I was so stimulated by the dialogue that I 'kidnapped' him
afterwards by giving him a lift to the house where we'd both been
invited to dinner.  As he sat wearily in the passenger seat, I rambled
on about this and that, and after a while this led to my 'sharing' my
great 'Everybody thinks like that' insight.  "You're wrong." he said,
and sank back into torpor.  My heart sank.  Then he sighed, and said:
"Only people who can think at all, think like that."

My professional career spans 35+ years in computer systems development
in the private sector, from machine code and plug-board days, through
assembler and a wide variety of high-level languages.   The hands-on
part spanned more than 20 years and I worked originally in commercial
applications development for systems vendors, focusing on elements of
operating systems and failure and recovery methods.  I developed early
versions of 'net-change' manufacturing planning and forecasting
systems, and from 1989, was an early participant in the nascent on-
line (originally phone-based) retail financial sector. I became Head
of Systems Architecture and Head of Information Analysis for the first
UK on-line bank, and Head of IT for an on-line retail insurer.  These
days, I do part time IT and business consultancy, and dabble in topics
like those on this list.  I've now achieved the status I've always
sought: self-employed dilettante.

I can't recall exactly when my interest in AI and 'mind body' issues
began, but it was re-stimulated by John Searle's ideas as presented in
the 1984 BBC Reith Lectures, which got me furiously thinking and
reading about functionalism and then-current mind-brain theories like
Pribram's Holonomic theory.  I reached a vague realisation that
functionalism was incompatible with materialism, which is why I had a
start of recognition when I encountered Bruno's arguments.  But I've
really spent the intervening period just 'dilettanting' around the
related areas - philosophy of mind, epistemology, QM, cosmology,
Darwinism, etc. - as my enthusiasm and energy waxes and wanes.

I've read or skimmed quite a lot of the book list others have
mentioned, but definitely need more rigour on the math and logic
background.  The existence of forums like this one has more or less
kept my marriage intact when it might not have survived many further
attempts to 'innocently' subvert ordinary conversations into
'epistomology' or some such nonsense.

A few books that have triggered something or other, or that I often
return to:

The Fabric of Reality (Deutsch)
The Conscious Mind (Chalmers)
Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Bohm)
The End of Time (Barbour)
The Emperor's New Mind (Penrose)
Theory of Nothing (Standish)
Laws of Form (Spencer-Brown)
The Quark and The Jaguar (Gell-Mann)
Godel, Escher Bach (Hofstadter)
The Mind's I (Hofstadter and Dennett)
Consciousness Explained (Dennett)
The Selfish Gene (Dawkins)
The Blank Slate (Pinker)
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Popper)
The Open Society and Its Enemies (Popper)
The Man who mistook His Wife for a Hat (Sacks)
The Society of Mind (Minsky)
How Children Learn (Holt)
The Act of Creation (Koestler)
The Psychology of Learning Mathematics (Skemp)
Frogs into Princes (Bandler and Grinder)
The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle)
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Carroll)
Foucault's Pendulum (Eco)


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Re: JOINING post

[John Mikes]

Dear Mindaugas Indriunas
(this reply wsas sitting half-way written in my DRAFTS box. Excuse the
delay, please)

I feel we get entangled into more than what we want to.
As I translate (to my mind) your words, a 'consequence' should be viewed as
'connected' to its originating (you said: cause),  while I keep it more open
that an 'entailer' can have different entailments,
 according to the total interconnectedness and the changings. of the
totality. ((since many variants from diverse parts play into the process))
So the 'originating point may be "ONE" of the outcomeS of that "cause(-es we
regognized so far)".
I like to view  'process' linked to all changes in the totality - not the
'snapshots' which science likes to study (states? equilibria?).
So I am not so sure about "CAUSE", in most cases it is a model-view: we
select a portion of the totality for our observation (=model) and find IN IT
a momentum that can be picked in the entailment of the object. WE call it
'cause', while the totality interferes with other effects as well, maybe
beyond our model, maybe others are not even discovered yet, and a cumulative
outcome is the 'object' we assign to that ONE "cause" within the limited
model we observed.
This is the way I 'separate' the process of our universe FROM - what you
called (not my word) "originating point" in the (model view) called
'universe'. (ours, that is, among unlimited and different others.)
*
I see a dynamic interactive process, not 'rules', which are extracted from a
selection (model) of observations as accounted for "most" occurring.
(People call that 'statistical'). Physical law is such, cellular automata
are sub-models - in this view, deduced rules change.
I think it is time to get over the conventional prejudices based on a
primitive explanatory mindset upon superficial observations, I say
'superficial' because we are not (yet as well) capable of applying FULL
informative understanding to our observations.
That resuloted historically in the 'primitive material worldview' and the
quantized edifice of the physical views.
I cannot tell what is the right stance but hope in progressing into a better
understanding.
Most "advanced" poisitions of today still anchor in the old views. We CANNOT
do better. I condone it as a possibiloity of stepping forward.
You as part of the new generation may get further.

John Mikes


On 3/13/07, 明迪 < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Dear John,
>
> I feel I understand your view and distinction of "origination point"
> and "origination".
> "Origination" is entailment of "origination point". "Origination
> point" is part of our world ("the item to be originated"). Is that
> correct?
>
> Now, my opinion is that there is no "origination" of the "origination
> point", because whatever it may be, it is connected to the item to be
> originated through causality. What I mean is, if we were to find some
> relatively simple rule generating our world, then we could actually
> try to reduce it to some even simpler rule.
>
> It is now thought of that some rules governing cellular automata are
> irreducible, since there seem to be no simpler rule to produce the
> patterns they some cellular automata produce, however, suppose that
> our world is governed by some relatively simple rule. In this case,
> there is a rule to reduce most if not all of the cellular automata
> rules, since it actually produces all the cellular automata that we
> know :-). Analogically, if we find that our world is some cellular
> automata with the initial state that we do not know, we could try to
> find the world produced by an even simpler rule, that eventually
> produces the initial state of our world.
>
> Mindaugas Indriunas
>
> On 3/8/07, John M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I feel a misunderstanding here:
> >
> > "origination point" IMO is part of the item to be originated, the
> pertinent
> > 'point' (within and for) the evolving total to grow out from.
> > As I used 'origination" refers to the entailment producing such "point"
> - if
> > we use a 'point' to start with.
> > Such 'point' is the limit we can go back to, not further to 'its'
> entailing
> > circumstgances we have no access to.
> > I tried to adjust to a vocabulary I responded to, not my own and
> preferred
> > one. Hence the misunderstandability.  Sorry.
> >
> > John Mikes
> >
> >
> > - Original Message -
> > From: 明迪
> > To: everything-l

Re: JOINING post

[John M]

Dear Mindaugas.
you wrote:
 "Analogically, if we find that our world is some cellular
automata ..."
I PRESUME THIS IS your STARTING POINT:  "if..." 
if not, if we find that our world is more(?) than a cellular automaton - which 
is in my word-use 'reductionist' - then the world is NOT governed by some 
simple rules. 
We don't set rules, we select models, count/identify in them the occurrences 
and deduct what happened most which then is called "law".  And the world is not 
GOVERNED. it is a process of them all. Nothing can be excluded from the 
interefficiency, because that would lead to separate worlds - which may well 
be, but we do not know about them. So your 'origination point' is causally 
connected (your word) to the rest of the totality and its process. A 'next 
step' segmentually observed. 
Initial state? I don't believe the narrative of the physical cosmology, because 
it has logical flaws even in human logic. I made another narrative, which may 
not be more 'true', but eliminates SOME flaws. You can make another one.
We "know" nothing about that 'origin', it was before the 'time' of Loebian 
machines (even before my time). 
We can speculate, it is cheap. 

John
  - Original Message - 
  From: 明迪 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 2:45 AM
  Subject: Re: JOINING post



  Dear John,

  I feel I understand your view and distinction of "origination point"
  and "origination".
  "Origination" is entailment of "origination point". "Origination
  point" is part of our world ("the item to be originated"). Is that
  correct?

  Now, my opinion is that there is no "origination" of the "origination
  point", because whatever it may be, it is connected to the item to be
  originated through causality. What I mean is, if we were to find some
  relatively simple rule generating our world, then we could actually
  try to reduce it to some even simpler rule.

  It is now thought of that some rules governing cellular automata are
  irreducible, since there seem to be no simpler rule to produce the
  patterns they some cellular automata produce, however, suppose that
  our world is governed by some relatively simple rule. In this case,
  there is a rule to reduce most if not all of the cellular automata
  rules, since it actually produces all the cellular automata that we
  know :-).with the initial state that we do not know, we could try to
  find the world produced by an even simpler rule, that eventually
  produces the initial state of our world.

  Mindaugas Indriunas

  On 3/8/07, John M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  >
  >
  > I feel a misunderstanding here:
  >
  > "origination point" IMO is part of the item to be originated, the pertinent
  > 'point' (within and for) the evolving total to grow out from.
  > As I used 'origination" refers to the entailment producing such "point" - if
  > we use a 'point' to start with.
  > Such 'point' is the limit we can go back to, not further to 'its' entailing
  > circumstgances we have no access to.
  > I tried to adjust to a vocabulary I responded to, not my own and preferred
  > one. Hence the misunderstandability.  Sorry.
  >
  > John Mikes
  >
  >
  > - Original Message -
  > From: 明迪
  > To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
  > Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 10:45 AM
  > Subject: Re: JOINING post
  >
  > Dear John Mikes, I thought your words 'Origin of (our) universe' are the
  > same as the word 'origination-point'.
  >
  > You said: (1)
  >
  > > 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.
  > >
  >
  > And you also said: (2)
  >
  > > we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it
  > may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely).
  > >
  >
  > From (2) claim it logically follows a statement "we can reach to items later
  > or equal to origination-point."
  >
  > I agree (2) statement, but slightly disagree with (1) statement.
  >
  >
  > Mindaugas Indriunas
  >
  >
  > On 3/5/07, John M < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  > >
  > >
  > > Dear Mindaugas Indriunas,
  > > what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use
  > >
  > > in our speculations only our present cognitive
  > > inventory of our existing mind.
  > > No information from super(extra)natural sources
  > > included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier
  > > items than the origination-point (whatever it may be)
  > > of our existence (I called it 'universe&

Re: JOINING post

[明迪]

Dear John,

I feel I understand your view and distinction of "origination point"
and "origination".
"Origination" is entailment of "origination point". "Origination
point" is part of our world ("the item to be originated"). Is that
correct?

Now, my opinion is that there is no "origination" of the "origination
point", because whatever it may be, it is connected to the item to be
originated through causality. What I mean is, if we were to find some
relatively simple rule generating our world, then we could actually
try to reduce it to some even simpler rule.

It is now thought of that some rules governing cellular automata are
irreducible, since there seem to be no simpler rule to produce the
patterns they some cellular automata produce, however, suppose that
our world is governed by some relatively simple rule. In this case,
there is a rule to reduce most if not all of the cellular automata
rules, since it actually produces all the cellular automata that we
know :-). Analogically, if we find that our world is some cellular
automata with the initial state that we do not know, we could try to
find the world produced by an even simpler rule, that eventually
produces the initial state of our world.

Mindaugas Indriunas

On 3/8/07, John M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> I feel a misunderstanding here:
>
> "origination point" IMO is part of the item to be originated, the pertinent
> 'point' (within and for) the evolving total to grow out from.
> As I used 'origination" refers to the entailment producing such "point" - if
> we use a 'point' to start with.
> Such 'point' is the limit we can go back to, not further to 'its' entailing
> circumstgances we have no access to.
> I tried to adjust to a vocabulary I responded to, not my own and preferred
> one. Hence the misunderstandability.  Sorry.
>
> John Mikes
>
>
> - Original Message -
> From: 明迪
> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 10:45 AM
> Subject: Re: JOINING post
>
> Dear John Mikes, I thought your words 'Origin of (our) universe' are the
> same as the word 'origination-point'.
>
> You said: (1)
>
> > 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.
> >
>
> And you also said: (2)
>
> > we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it
> may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely).
> >
>
> From (2) claim it logically follows a statement "we can reach to items later
> or equal to origination-point."
>
> I agree (2) statement, but slightly disagree with (1) statement.
>
>
> Mindaugas Indriunas
>
>
> On 3/5/07, John M < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dear Mindaugas Indriunas,
> > what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use
> >
> > in our speculations only our present cognitive
> > inventory of our existing mind.
> > No information from super(extra)natural sources
> > included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier
> > items than the origination-point (whatever it may be)
> > of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite
> > precisely).
> > Nor can a 'valid' ALGORITHM reach back further. Itg
> > cannot 'generate' information about ' no information'
> > topics. All we can speak about are intra-existence
> > items, the rest is fantasy, sci-fi, religion.
> > What I may use in a narrative, but by no means in the
> > conventionally outlined "scientific method".
> >
> > John M
> >
> >
> >
> > --- 明迪 < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > Dear John Mikes.
> > >
> > > I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only
> > > to 1 part of your
> > > letter:
> > >
> > > 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.
> > >
> > >
> > > If we do come up with an alorythm that actually does
> > > produce the data that
> > > we postdict (predict in the past), we may be able to
> > > (with some certainty)
> > > know it. Even the cellular automaton that is
> > > equivalent to universal turing
> > > machine, has its beginning.
> > >
> > > Mindaugas Indriunas
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >

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Re: JOINING post

[John M]

I feel a misunderstanding here:

"origination point" IMO is part of the item to be originated, the pertinent 
'point' (within and for) the evolving total to grow out from. 
As I used 'origination" refers to the entailment producing such "point" - if we 
use a 'point' to start with. 
Such 'point' is the limit we can go back to, not further to 'its' entailing 
circumstgances we have no access to. 
I tried to adjust to a vocabulary I responded to, not my own and preferred one. 
Hence the misunderstandability.  Sorry.

John Mikes
  - Original Message - 
  From: 明迪 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 10:45 AM
  Subject: Re: JOINING post


  Dear John Mikes, I thought your words 'Origin of (our) universe' are the same 
as the word 'origination-point'.

  You said: (1)

1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.


  And you also said: (2)

we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it 
may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely).


  From (2) claim it logically follows a statement "we can reach to items later 
or equal to origination-point." 

  I agree (2) statement, but slightly disagree with (1) statement.


  Mindaugas Indriunas


  On 3/5/07, John M < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Dear Mindaugas Indriunas,
what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use 

in our speculations only our present cognitive
inventory of our existing mind.
No information from super(extra)natural sources
included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier
items than the origination-point (whatever it may be) 
of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite
precisely).
Nor can a 'valid' ALGORITHM reach back further. Itg
cannot 'generate' information about ' no information'
topics. All we can speak about are intra-existence 
items, the rest is fantasy, sci-fi, religion.
What I may use in a narrative, but by no means in the
conventionally outlined "scientific method".

John M



--- 明迪 < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Dear John Mikes.
>
> I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only
> to 1 part of your
> letter:
>
> 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know. 
>
>
> If we do come up with an alorythm that actually does
> produce the data that
> we postdict (predict in the past), we may be able to
> (with some certainty)
> know it. Even the cellular automaton that is 
> equivalent to universal turing
> machine, has its beginning.
>
> Mindaugas Indriunas
> 
>
>
>
>


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Re: JOINING post

[John Mikes]

2 objections:

A. If I state that i cannot do something that does not (logically) imply
that I CAN do another thing.

B. Your last line is "your opinion" substantiated by nothing, I appreciate
anybodies "opinion" as such, it may have a personal (not factual) meaning -
weight.

We diverted from my point that I resist to "reach back" in statements to a
state that may have been (or may not have been?) before (outside?) our
comprehensive limits.

John M



On 3/6/07, 明迪 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Dear John Mikes, I thought your words 'Origin of (our) universe' are the
> same as the word 'origination-point'.
>
> You said: (1)
>
> >  1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.
> >
>
> And you also said: (2)
>
> > we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it
> > may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely).
> >
>
> From (2) claim it logically follows a statement "we can reach to items
> later or equal to origination-point."
>
> I agree (2) statement, but slightly disagree with (1) statement.
>
>
> Mindaugas Indriunas
>
> On 3/5/07, John M < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dear Mindaugas Indriunas,
> > what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use
> >
> > in our speculations only our present cognitive
> > inventory of our existing mind.
> > No information from super(extra)natural sources
> > included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier
> > items than the origination-point (whatever it may be)
> > of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite
> > precisely).
> > Nor can a 'valid' ALGORITHM reach back further. Itg
> > cannot 'generate' information about ' no information'
> > topics. All we can speak about are intra-existence
> > items, the rest is fantasy, sci-fi, religion.
> > What I may use in a narrative, but by no means in the
> > conventionally outlined "scientific method".
> >
> > John M
> >
> >
> >
> > --- 明迪 < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > Dear John Mikes.
> > >
> > > I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only
> > > to 1 part of your
> > > letter:
> > >
> > > 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.
> > >
> > >
> > > If we do come up with an alorythm that actually does
> > > produce the data that
> > > we postdict (predict in the past), we may be able to
> > > (with some certainty)
> > > know it. Even the cellular automaton that is
> > > equivalent to universal turing
> > > machine, has its beginning.
> > >
> > > Mindaugas Indriunas
> > > http://i.tai.lt
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > > >
> >

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Re: JOINING post

[明迪]

Dear John Mikes, I thought your words 'Origin of (our) universe' are the
same as the word 'origination-point'.

You said: (1)

> 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.
>

And you also said: (2)

> we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it
> may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely).
>

>From (2) claim it logically follows a statement "we can reach to items later
or equal to origination-point."

I agree (2) statement, but slightly disagree with (1) statement.


Mindaugas Indriunas

On 3/5/07, John M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Mindaugas Indriunas,
> what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use
>
> in our speculations only our present cognitive
> inventory of our existing mind.
> No information from super(extra)natural sources
> included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier
> items than the origination-point (whatever it may be)
> of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite
> precisely).
> Nor can a 'valid' ALGORITHM reach back further. Itg
> cannot 'generate' information about ' no information'
> topics. All we can speak about are intra-existence
> items, the rest is fantasy, sci-fi, religion.
> What I may use in a narrative, but by no means in the
> conventionally outlined "scientific method".
>
> John M
>
>
>
> --- 明迪 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Dear John Mikes.
> >
> > I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only
> > to 1 part of your
> > letter:
> >
> > 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.
> >
> >
> > If we do come up with an alorythm that actually does
> > produce the data that
> > we postdict (predict in the past), we may be able to
> > (with some certainty)
> > know it. Even the cellular automaton that is
> > equivalent to universal turing
> > machine, has its beginning.
> >
> > Mindaugas Indriunas
> > http://i.tai.lt
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> >
>

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Re: JOINING post

[John M]

Dear Mindaugas Indriunas,
what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use

in our speculations only our present cognitive
inventory of our existing mind. 
No information from super(extra)natural sources
included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier
items than the origination-point (whatever it may be)
of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite
precisely). 
Nor can a 'valid' ALGORITHM reach back further. Itg
cannot 'generate' information about ' no information'
topics. All we can speak about are intra-existence
items, the rest is fantasy, sci-fi, religion. 
What I may use in a narrative, but by no means in the
conventionally outlined "scientific method".

John M



--- 明迪 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Dear John Mikes.
> 
> I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only
> to 1 part of your
> letter:
> 
> 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.
> 
> 
> If we do come up with an alorythm that actually does
> produce the data that
> we postdict (predict in the past), we may be able to
> (with some certainty)
> know it. Even the cellular automaton that is
> equivalent to universal turing
> machine, has its beginning.
> 
> Mindaugas Indriunas
> http://i.tai.lt
> 
>
> 
> 


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Re: JOINING post

[明迪]

Dear John Mikes.

I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only to 1 part of your
letter:

1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know.


If we do come up with an alorythm that actually does produce the data that
we postdict (predict in the past), we may be able to (with some certainty)
know it. Even the cellular automaton that is equivalent to universal turing
machine, has its beginning.

Mindaugas Indriunas
http://i.tai.lt

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Re: JOINING

[Mohsen Ravanbakhsh]

" I can only conclude that the 'isms are asomewhat artificial classification
- useful for discussing past ideas on consciousness perhaps, but not useful
for going forward."

I got your point, thanks.
I wanted to see if there's any assumption.


-- 

Mohsen Ravanbakhsh,

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Re: JOINING

[Russell Standish]

On Sun, Mar 04, 2007 at 09:29:51PM +0330, Mohsen Ravanbakhsh wrote:
> 
> and I have another question:
> Throughout discussions, what is the assumption regarding the mind-body
> problem? (Emergentism, reductionism, eliminativism, dualism, ...)
> 
> -- 
> 
> Mohsen Ravanbakhsh,
> 
> 

None of the above, basically. I have a section on 'isms in my book,
and conclude that my own position on consciousness can be described by
all the classic 'isms apart from eliminative materialism. Since my
position is consistent AFAIK, I can only conclude that the 'isms are a
somewhat artificial classification - useful for discussing past ideas
on consciousness perhaps, but not useful for going forward.

I was reminded of the old parable of the "six men of Indostan and the
elephant". The 'isms of cognitive science are like saying elephant
science consists of wallism, spearism, snakeism, treeism, fanism and
ropeism.

Anyway, cognitive science is not discussed much on this list, but it
is on topic IMHO.


-- 


A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: JOINING

[Mohsen Ravanbakhsh]

Thank you for your welcome,

A neat approach!
"You know the many world interpretation of Everett?"
Yes, I've read about it, but as I said before my knowledge of Quantum
Physics is too general.
"You know quantum computing?"
I have some background, but I don't know if there's any way in which it's
related to various interpretations of Q-Physics. I thought the
interpretation wont affect the application.
"I know there are some people working at it in Tehran. What is your opinion
on the everything idea?"
Although I really like it, I don't work seriously in this field, because I
do not have a strong background in physics.
Actually at first my motivation was the consciousness related issues. I was
trying to see if there's enough room in modern physics for mind! and the
effect of conscious observation in the experiment seemed to be a clue.
By reading different interpretations briefly, I found two interpretations
more interesting:
The first one was this many worlds interpretation and the second one was the
interpretation of prof.D.Bohm.
Here's my first question: "Are these interpretations philosophical claims or
scientific ones? is there any way to prove or reject them?"

"Have you an opinion on "mathematicalism"? The idea that physical reality
could emerge from mathematical reality?"
I'd rather say correspondence instead of emergence. I've found out about the
idea recently, and I guess it's better to study a bit more before any ...
(...I've already did that! )

and I have another question:
Throughout discussions, what is the assumption regarding the mind-body
problem? (Emergentism, reductionism, eliminativism, dualism, ...)

-- 

Mohsen Ravanbakhsh,








On 3/4/07, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Mohsen, welcome to the list,
>
>
> Le 04-mars-07, à 08:43, Mohsen Ravanbakhsh a écrit :
>
> > Hi everybody,
> >
> >
> > As it was suggested in the homepage of the group, I'm going to have a
> > brief description of my backgrounds:
> > I'm an undergrad (grad in near future) student of Computer Science(Not
> > exactly!)
> > I have some backgrounds in philosophy of mind and a holistic and
> > abstract view of Quantum physics and relativity.
>
>
>
> You know the many world interpretation of Everett? You know quantum
> computing? I know there are some people working at it in Tehran. What
> is your opinion on the everything idea?
> Have you an opinion on "mathematicalism"? The idea that physical
> reality could emerge from mathematical reality?
>
>
>
>
> > and have familiarity with concepts in Information Theory, Game Theory,
> > Cryptography and these kinds of somehow separated fields of study in
> > Computer Science.
> > Actually I'm not a fluent English writer, but I'm not lame too...:)
> >
> >
> > Mohsen Ravanbakhsh,
> > Sharif University of Technology,
>
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
> >
>

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Re: JOINING

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Mohsen, welcome to the list,


Le 04-mars-07, à 08:43, Mohsen Ravanbakhsh a écrit :

> Hi everybody,
>
>
> As it was suggested in the homepage of the group, I'm going to have a 
> brief description of my backgrounds:
> I'm an undergrad (grad in near future) student of Computer Science(Not 
> exactly!)
> I have some backgrounds in philosophy of mind and a holistic and 
> abstract view of Quantum physics and relativity.



You know the many world interpretation of Everett? You know quantum 
computing? I know there are some people working at it in Tehran. What 
is your opinion on the everything idea?
Have you an opinion on "mathematicalism"? The idea that physical 
reality could emerge from mathematical reality?




> and have familiarity with concepts in Information Theory, Game Theory, 
> Cryptography and these kinds of somehow separated fields of study in 
> Computer Science.
> Actually I'm not a fluent English writer, but I'm not lame too...:)
>
>
> Mohsen Ravanbakhsh,
> Sharif University of Technology,


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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JOINING

[Mohsen Ravanbakhsh]

Hi everybody,


As it was suggested in the homepage of the group, I'm going to have a brief
description of my backgrounds:
I'm an undergrad (grad in near future) student of Computer Science(Not
exactly!)
I have some backgrounds in philosophy of mind and a holistic and abstract
view of Quantum physics and relativity.
and have familiarity with concepts in Information Theory, Game Theory,
Cryptography and these kinds of somehow separated fields of study in
Computer Science.
Actually I'm not a fluent English writer, but I'm not lame too...:)


Mohsen Ravanbakhsh,
Sharif University of Technology,
Tehran.

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Re: JOINING post

[John Mikes]

Dear Mindaugas Indriunas,
I usually do not reply to newcomers, I leave it to the more seasoned list
members and keep my pretty unorthodox ideas from the 'unseasoned' fresh
theoretically idealists. Now I make an exemption, mainly not for you, but
for other listers to expose some of my heretic positions I always just
lightly touch. So please, do not take it personally, but do with them
anything that fits your taste.

1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know. We speculate, calculate
(wrongly), imagine and suppose. We derive theories and fit our half-baked
conclusions into them.
I am no exception, but I call it a "narrative" and fit it into 'human'
understandability (what by no means is necessary, except for us, to talk
about it).

2.Is indeed No1: IS THERE an origin? Even among those who accepted Hubble's
view on the expanding universe there is the oscillatory originless view. See
2A and 2B below

2A -Hubble? he detected the redshift and equated it with an optical Doppler
leading to an expansional(?) recess of light sources - hence the universe
expands. No analysis that could explain the redshift by other factors
(fields the light passed through, or even to assume not yet discovered
circumstances to such result). Then many thousand physicists jumped on the
bandwagon to reap Nobel prizes and academic tenures by millions (sic) of
experiments all designed to PROVE the expansion. If it did not, it was the
wrong experiment.  So since 1922 we do expand.

2B If something expands, it expands FROM a zero point (if not by harmonic
play Point 2)
Physicists are constructivist reductionists so the 'zero' was more likable
than the elusive "exists forever" shoving the origin under the rug. It it
expands, let us see in retrograde, where it came from - and physical
cosmology made the trip to their Big Bang: the ZERO.
I am not referring to the fictions how the zero started into non-zero, I
just address the retrogradicity of our present (widely expanded and loosened
up) - physical system int the denser past allo the way to million-billion
times closer - and eo ipso absolutely different physical 'laws'  applying
our present system-laws as valid for those different states.
And this is only one side. The other: retrogradicity was imagined linearly
in a cosmos that indeed evolved under nonlinear processes. So the 'age' and
conditions must be all wrong in their BB-fable. Realizing the paradoxes new
tales were invented to correct the quantitative errors (inflation, etc.) not
making the basic assumptions any better.

This is for breakfast, now you may take a pinch of salt to the rest of the
story.
Welcome to this list and good luck to you

John Mikes



On 2/14/07, Mindaugas Indriūnas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
>  I am an undergraduate student of mathematics, I come from Europe,
> Lithuania. My lifetime research interests are the universe and it's origin
> (it's structure). I have been studying physics, but changed my field to
> mathematics because physics has no model which can explain the earliest
> moments of the universe's existence. I have hopes to understand it through
> comparison and analysis of the properties of possible computational
> universe(s) with the properties our universe.
>
> I have read some pages of Paul Budnik's homepage ( http://www.mtnmath.com/) 
> on DP, and about 80 pages of his book ("What will be"), also Edward
> Fredkin Digital Philosophy site, about 100 pages of Stephen Wolfram's book
> on NKS, now, searching for the English translation of the Konrad Zuse's
> "Rechnender Raum."; more previously, I have been browsing the pages
> http://www.physics.co.uk/ and the http://www.the-origin.org/ , that may be
> a little bit less related with DP, but that are related with the try to
> understand the origin of the universe.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Mindaugas Indriūnas
> >
>

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JOINING post

[Mindaugas Indriūnas]

Hello,

 I am an undergraduate student of mathematics, I come from Europe,
Lithuania. My lifetime research interests are the universe and it's origin
(it's structure). I have been studying physics, but changed my field to
mathematics because physics has no model which can explain the earliest
moments of the universe's existence. I have hopes to understand it through
comparison and analysis of the properties of possible computational
universe(s) with the properties our universe.

I have read some pages of Paul Budnik's homepage ( http://www.mtnmath.com/ )
on DP, and about 80 pages of his book ("What will be"), also Edward Fredkin
Digital Philosophy site, about 100 pages of Stephen Wolfram's book on NKS,
now, searching for the English translation of the Konrad Zuse's "Rechnender
Raum."; more previously, I have been browsing the pages
http://www.physics.co.uk/ and the http://www.the-origin.org/ , that may be a
little bit less related with DP, but that are related with the try to
understand the origin of the universe.

Yours sincerely,
Mindaugas Indriūnas

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JOINING post

[Erik Moeller]

Hi all -

nice to be here. I'm probably going to mostly lurk, but a brief
introduction can't hurt, I guess.

BACKGROUND: 28 y/o, CS/media. Tech writer & freelance developer.
Lately become fairly involved in a number of NGOs, notably Wikimedia
Foundation (home of Wikipedia) & Open Progress (an open source / open
knowledge think tank). I've written a book called "Die heimliche
Medienrevolution" ("the secret media revolution") which describes the
global media changes that have begun to emerge with the Internet.

I'm helping to develop a collaborative, multilingual structured
ontology engine at omegawiki.org , which has a multilingual dictionary/
thesaurus as its first application, though we also have working
imports of scientific ontologies. I question modern thinking on
sexuality, which I believe is still in continuity with monotheistic
doctrine; I run a website at violence.de which presents some little
known research on the topic of touch & sexuality. I believe
"Intellectual Property" must be largely eliminated, and I'm also
highly interested in enabling a new economy of knowledge which does
not require IP, but uses distributed funding models instead. I
strongly promote Free Culture & Open Access wherever I go. :-)

INTEREST: Increasingly fascinated with emergence, as far as I can
understand it. I'm a slow learner, but like to believe that random
rules evolving under a meta-rule can be used to emerge all the
complexity of a multiverse, and am interested in what smarter people
than me have to say about that. I also wonder about the definition of
"intelligence" as it is used in everyday life, as opposed to what I
perceive as clearly intelligent patterns e.g. in biological evolution;
I think intelligence needs to be redefined as a process that does not
require a "subject" as such to occur. That is, I do believe in
"intelligent design," but without a designer, and instead of
"irreducible complexity", "fully reducible complexity." ;-)

I'm an absolute amateur here, but fear not; the thing that
distinguishes me from the average crackpot is that I do know that I
know very little. The above is just a very tentative state of thinking
which is flagged in my brain as "needs extensive review & discussion."
I'm here to learn, over a period of years if necessary, to get at
least a basic view of the state of thinking on these subjects.  I have
no delusions of grandeur -- my only hope to make any "original"
contribution is to perhaps be able to help communicate some of the
ideas of this group to a larger audience, as I feel they could be
highly relevant to the view that we have on the multiverse and our own
role therein.

I do believe, and I think there is reason to do so, that Darwinian
evolutionary thought has opened up a new chapter in our perception of
ourselves and our species, but this chapter is not yet complete. The
emergence of life on Earth is so utterly amazing that many refuse to
believe it. When we fully realize that this process is itself part of
a larger process of emergence, and become capable of describing (and
perhaps replicating) it, redefining ourselves becomes inescapable. We
are merely agents of emergence.

Now here's a crackpot idea to throw into the mix, and then you can
start laughing: I do believe that this perception can become the basis
for a new kind of morality, an "objective morality", where the
discovery of truth and the rational application thereof becomes the
only _objectively justifiable_ moral course that an agent of emergence
may take. Social behavior is "merely" utilitarian, but extremely
powerful at the same time; anti-social societies, or those which
tolerate anti-social behavior, are not sustainable. Historically,
people have looked to arbitrary rule systems for moral guidance; these
may be partially useful and partially harmful. My hope is that at
least a segment of society can evolve to follow a completely rational
rule system -- and that we may be at the brink of consensus about
this.

To my credit (or not), most of these thoughts are my own (which I
haven't really shared before), and I'm only beginning to be influenced
by the seemingly endless number of publications on the topic. Since I
was a child, the idea of a "finite", single universe has always seemed
bizarre to me, due to its arbitrary nature; the final "Why?" question
should not be answered with "We don't know" but "Because there is no
other way for things _to be_, for the phrase 'to be' to make any
sense."

If anyone wants to suggest a reading list, I'd be most appreciative.
If anything has been written in particular on the topics of objective
morality, or definition of "intelligence" in emergent systems, I'd be
very interested. Stuff I've already flagged for reading is
Schmidhuber's work (just trying to understand the conclusions -- no
hope of following in his footsteps) and Wolfram's, which I'll take
with the required block of salt. There's a number of pop sci books out
about emergence, but I don't know if they're an

Re: JOINING post

[Jason]

Bruno Marchal wrote:
I will take a look once I get enough time. It seems you belong to the

ASSA group, that is you accept some form of bayesianism for fundamental
probability question. Hope you will wake them up ...
(ASSA = absolute self-sampling assumption). You should read Nick
Bostrom and the posts by Hal Finney, Wei Dai and some others in the
list archive) ...
Apparently we agree on "mathematicalism" ...



Bruno,

Thanks for the welcome, I've been looking over the list archive and
have found your posts to be very logical and concisely described.  From
what I gather your believe in mathematicalism and computationalism.  In
the posts of yours I have seen, I have not come across anything that I
would disagree with.  My question is, do you see ASSA as incompatible
with COMP, and if so how?  One of the ideas I describe on the website I
posted is that Turing machines, being mathematical structures exist and
there should exist an instance of a turing machine for every possible
program.  Some of these programs define more states than others (before
looping or halting) and life forms should be most likely to occur
within programs that define the most states.  Is what I described
compatible with both COMP and ASSA?


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Re: JOINING post

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Jason,

Welcome,


Le 03-janv.-07, à 11:07, Jason a écrit :


http://home.gcn.cx/users/jason/ideas.html


I will take a look once I get enough time. It seems you belong to the 
ASSA group, that is you accept some form of bayesianism for fundamental 
probability question. Hope you will wake them up ...
(ASSA = absolute self-sampling assumption). You should read Nick 
Bostrom and the posts by Hal Finney, Wei Dai and some others in the 
list archive) ...

Apparently we agree on "mathematicalism" ...

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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JOINING post

[Jason]

Hello Everyone,

I am a 22 year old male who majored in computer science.  I have some
level of familiarity with Ultimate Ensemble, Digital physics, the
many-worlds interpretation, as well as philosophy.  Some people that
have influenced my ideas include: Max Tegmark, David Deutsch, Wei Dai,
Konrad Zuse, Daniel Dennett, Burkhard Heim, Stephen Wolfram,  and
Jürgen Schmidhuber.  I've recently put together a cohesive paper
regarding my ideas which can be found here
http://home.gcn.cx/users/jason/ideas.html

I am curious about other's opinions regarding one of my ideas in
particular, that observers are far far more likely to find themselves
in a universe that exhibits qualities of quantum mechanics (namely many
worlds).  This is because the number of observers will grow at an
extremely high exponential rate compared to observers in a universe
with only one history line.

Along this same thought, could this also explain why the universe's
initial conditions were extremely close to the maximum without causing
an early gravitational collapse?  Having more matter means more
possibility for interactions, and therefore the universe will split at
an even higher rate, causing universes with maximum initial conditions
to quickly overtake universes with a lesser abundance of particles.  In
a sense, the number of particles in a many-worlds universe would
determine the base in the exponential function that calculates how
quickly the universe splits.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jason


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Re: Cosmological Theodicea - JOINING post

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Maurizio,

Le 11-déc.-06, à 14:29, Maurizio Morabito a écrit :



Hello everybody

I am a 39-year-old male with a Master in Engineering, a scientific
background and an enduring passion for Cosmology

I have been elaborating something along lines similar to Tegmark's
myself for a few years, albeit starting from a more philosophical point
of view


I appreciate Tegmark's "mathematicalism". But I cannot follow him in  
the details because he assumes a naive relation between an observer and  
a "physical" universe. Precisely, if we assume there is a level where  
we are turing-emulable, I have argued(*)  that the physical laws should  
emerge from a sum on all computations capable of supporting my current  
computational state. Eventually this makes physics a branch of computer  
science. At the same time this gives physics a predominant role in the  
sense that physics is no more related to some special mathematical  
structure, but to a sort of sum (perhaps a generalized integral à-la  
Feynman) on all mathematical structures.





My original question was something like this: "Given that I am physical
being, can a tree in my thoughts be any less physical than a tree in my
garden?"



Are you open to the idea that the tree in the garden is no more  
physical than the tree in your eyes? A little like if "physical  
reality" was the result of a video game. Actually I would argue physics  
emerge from an infinity of "video games" which mathematical existence  
can be justified already in weak axiomatic of the natural numbers (with  
addition and multiplication) or from any specification of any universal  
turing machine.
Tegmark is a bit too quick on the mind/body relationship (to make it  
short).






Here's my current stance on the topic (I presume the titles are
giveaways...):

God’s Many Dices (I) - The Science of Parallel Universes (an extended
commentary of Tegmark's):
http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2006/10/23/god%e2%80%99s-many-dices-i- 
the-science-of-parallel-universes/

http://tinyurl.com/y565d2

God’s Many Dices (II) - The Philosophy of Parallel Universes
(introductory remarks on the philosophical consequences of parallel
universes)
http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2006/10/24/god%e2%80%99s-many-dices-ii- 
the-philosophy-of-parallel-universes/

http://tinyurl.com/y4udnp

In the second article I propose an answer to the Theodicea question
(namely, God doesn't just "allow evil" to happen: God allows
"everything" to happen). I haven't come across that before (is anybody
else here interested in the topic?)



What is the difference between "everything exists" (the main line of  
this list) and God allows everything to happen. What is that "God" and  
how does the fact that It allows everything to happen solve the  
"theodicea question". Is a God allowing Darfur "good" ? Does "God"  
allows everything to happen, or is "God" not able not to allow  
everything to happen (in that case your "God" has no relationship with  
the Christian God and with the traditional theodicea question, as some  
have reminded me recently in the list.





Anyway, having just joined I'll now lurk for a while



You are welcome,




regards
maurizio

Blog (English): http://omnologos.wordpress.com
Blog (Italiano): http://mauriziomorabito.wordpress.com




Bruno


(*) http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Cosmological Theodicea - JOINING post

[Maurizio Morabito]

Hello everybody

I am a 39-year-old male with a Master in Engineering, a scientific
background and an enduring passion for Cosmology

I have been elaborating something along lines similar to Tegmark's
myself for a few years, albeit starting from a more philosophical point
of view

My original question was something like this: "Given that I am physical
being, can a tree in my thoughts be any less physical than a tree in my
garden?"

Here's my current stance on the topic (I presume the titles are
giveaways...):

God’s Many Dices (I) - The Science of Parallel Universes (an extended
commentary of Tegmark's):
http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2006/10/23/god%e2%80%99s-many-dices-i-the-science-of-parallel-universes/
http://tinyurl.com/y565d2

God’s Many Dices (II) - The Philosophy of Parallel Universes
(introductory remarks on the philosophical consequences of parallel
universes)
http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2006/10/24/god%e2%80%99s-many-dices-ii-the-philosophy-of-parallel-universes/
http://tinyurl.com/y4udnp

In the second article I propose an answer to the Theodicea question
(namely, God doesn't just "allow evil" to happen: God allows
"everything" to happen). I haven't come across that before (is anybody
else here interested in the topic?)

Anyway, having just joined I'll now lurk for a while

regards
maurizio

Blog (English): http://omnologos.wordpress.com
Blog (Italiano): http://mauriziomorabito.wordpress.com


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Re: joining.

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 03-juil.-05, à 05:17, chris peck a écrit :


The idea that the earth is an orb is not counter intuitive even though 
the earth is flat locally. It counters no logical principles. The idea 
that particles can be in more than one place at the same time is not 
counter intuitive because it is a 'non local' fact - ie concerning 
things that are 'unseen' - , but because 'particle' is traditionally 
defined in a particular way which logically prohibits such a fact. Our 
definition is at fault, our intuition is sound.



If by counter intuitive you mean "against logical principle" I would 
agree with you. But I was using the term in the more general sense of 
contradicting some bets we usually do from our experiences.





'Surely modern physics makes many counter intuitive,
but if you look at history you see that physicist take time to accept 
them.

'

Which counter intuitive idea should be accepted?



Either relatively to a theory we bet on, or simply when facts 
contradicts some of our believes so that we need to update or revise 
them.



That there are infinite universes existing beyond falsification? That 
possibilities collapse into actuality on being looked at (again beyond 
falsification)? Both fit the equations I am led to understand. I dont 
think either of these interpretations will be accepted for long.




I guess here we differ a lot and that we will need to discuss a lot. 
Now, as an applied logician, I am interested in truth but I believe I 
can only propose theories and interpretations of those theories. What I 
am sure of is that if the computationalist hypothesis is correct in 
cognitive science then the notion of universe(s) is not a primitive 
one. Physical reality emerges from a measure on all possible 
computations, and this is closer to many universes than just one 
universe. In this list many agree that all consistent realities exist 
in less demanding than accepting anyone particular reality. Then we are 
confronted with the dragon problem.






I think physicists continue to hope for a classical universe 
underlying and deterministically explaining quantum 'reality'.



Some physicists are, but my "poll" inquest goes in the other direction, 
even if some minority try to go back to Newton. Now I don't care about 
numbers of people believing something. With my work you can deduce that 
newtonian physics implies the falsity of the comp hyp.

(But that is for later).




I think Quantum mechanics is the first time in the history of science 
that truelly counter intuitive ideas, indeed illogical ideas, have 
been presented and asked to be accepted. Unless someone can offer 
another example.



I disagree, unless you mean "non classically logical" by "non logical".




'>Like in classical logic. You can prove things without constructing

them.

'

But logic proves validity, not truth.



Pure logic, but not apply logic in some field. Of course at some level, 
as we agree (I think), we always prove things relatively to a theory 
(made explicit or not).




We shouldnt assume there is any truth about a valid argument. We can 
question the premises of a valid argument, and should do so if its 
conclusions are as counter intuitive as those of the DH. But which 
premises are at fault?



We can reason like that, but to question the premisses, the 
counter-intuitive propositions should be close to total absurdity. As I 
said, most of the time "counter-intuition" is just "the intuition" of 
the other.






surely its the definition of 'typical' as having  birth ranks placed 
at the peak of a rising population count.


Isnt the DH an epistemological argument really?. Its about what to 
expect might happen rather than what will happen. I can have no reason 
to say I am typical or untypical in my birth rank in this respect 
untill I know what the maximum count will be, and I shouldnt therefore 
use the DH to speculate about what the maximum count should be. I 
should be resolutely agnostic about this.



I agree. Nevertheless I think the DA is completely convincing once we 
accept some hypotheses. But all are in contradiction with both the comp 
hyp, or with some finite set of physical facts (like the five 
Stern-Gerlach experiment from which Julian Swinger quasi-derives the 
Quantum formalism).





'If the humans solve all "human problems and prevent all
risk of apocalypse, or build bunker for all citizens" then the DH 
entails we will all die for an unknown reason.'


isnt there is a sense in which (in a constantly rising population) 
anyone in history could formulate the DH and come to the same 
conclusion, and looking back we can see their expectancy would be 
wrong. Over and over again the DH would predict doom soon, yet it 
never comes. Inductively then, we shouldnt accept it.



A long time ago I have made the calculation. By taking the data (human 
population) from something like -125000 to 500 before C. I got a 
prediction of apocalypse between 1000 and 3000 after C. taking into 
ac

Re: joining.

[Russell Standish]

On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 03:17:56AM +, chris peck wrote:
> 
> But logic proves validity, not truth. We shouldnt assume there is any truth 
> about a valid argument. We can question the premises of a valid argument, 
> and should do so if its conclusions are as counter intuitive as those of 
> the DH. But which premises are at fault?

You keep saying the DA (its an argument, not a hyptothesis) is
counterintuitive. I don't find it so.

> 
> isnt there is a sense in which (in a constantly rising population) anyone 
> in history could formulate the DH and come to the same conclusion, and 
> looking back we can see their expectancy would be wrong. Over and over 
> again the DH would predict doom soon, yet it never comes. Inductively then, 
> we shouldnt accept it.

The DA is invalid in a constantly rising population. It requires that
population curve is in fact bounded. (Often it is stated that the total
population is finite (ie integrated population curve), but it can be
extended to the infinite total population case if the population curve
is bounded).

Intuitively, it is hard to imagine the population curve continuing to
rise ad infinitum.


-- 
*PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.


A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
Mathematics0425 253119 (")
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix  +612, Interstate prefix 02



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Re: joining.

[chris peck]

Hi Bruno;

'. Earth *is* flat locally.'

The idea that the earth is an orb is not counter intuitive even though the 
earth is flat locally. It counters no logical principles. The idea that 
particles can be in more than one place at the same time is not counter 
intuitive because it is a 'non local' fact - ie concerning things that are 
'unseen' - , but because 'particle' is traditionally defined in a particular 
way which logically prohibits such a fact. Our definition is at fault, our 
intuition is sound.


'Surely modern physics makes many counter intuitive,

but if you look at history you see that physicist take time to accept them.

'

Which counter intuitive idea should be accepted? That there are infinite 
universes existing beyond falsification? That possibilities collapse into 
actuality on being looked at (again beyond falsification)? Both fit the 
equations I am led to understand. I dont think either of these 
interpretations will be accepted for long.


I think physicists continue to hope for a classical universe underlying and 
deterministically explaining quantum 'reality'.


I think Quantum mechanics is the first time in the history of science that 
truelly counter intuitive ideas, indeed illogical ideas, have been presented 
and asked to be accepted. Unless someone can offer another example.


'>Like in classical logic. You can prove things without constructing

them.

'

But logic proves validity, not truth. We shouldnt assume there is any truth 
about a valid argument. We can question the premises of a valid argument, 
and should do so if its conclusions are as counter intuitive as those of the 
DH. But which premises are at fault?



surely its the definition of 'typical' as having  birth ranks placed at the 
peak of a rising population count.


Isnt the DH an epistemological argument really?. Its about what to expect 
might happen rather than what will happen. I can have no reason to say I am 
typical or untypical in my birth rank in this respect untill I know what the 
maximum count will be, and I shouldnt therefore use the DH to speculate 
about what the maximum count should be. I should be resolutely agnostic 
about this.


'If the humans solve all "human problems and prevent all
risk of apocalypse, or build bunker for all citizens" then the DH entails 
we will all die for an unknown reason.'


isnt there is a sense in which (in a constantly rising population) anyone in 
history could formulate the DH and come to the same conclusion, and looking 
back we can see their expectancy would be wrong. Over and over again the DH 
would predict doom soon, yet it never comes. Inductively then, we shouldnt 
accept it.


(nor to be sure the idea of absolute self-sampling among humans, why not 
bacteria).


Do you mean that we should interpret the DH so that its reference class can 
contain all types of organism, and kind of maximise the priors accordingly 
to temper the DH conclusion, then I think there is something in that. But I 
still prefer to just intuitively shrug it off.


Anyhow, getting back to your papers.

Im reading 'Mechanism And Personal Identity'. Its hard. You know ive got 
Perry's book on Personal Identity right here, and your paper is a lot harder 
than that. The amount of formal logic is a little daunting for me, are there 
any good summeries?


I'll maybe dig out 'Sane'.

'Some on this list agrees
physicality could be secondary and could or should emerge from some 
relative or absolute measure on the set of "Observer-Moments". '



Idealism? OMs being little bits of consciousness? If so, Im familier with 
the idea, but not the dove tail argument for it.


'>As you see we dig deep: the primitive nature of nature is really
where Aristotle opposed himself against Plato, and since 2300 years most 
follows Aristotle.

'

Is that the argument here? Whether matter is an emergent property or whether 
it is a substrate?


'and since 2300 years most follows Aristotle.'

Who did Kant follow? Didnt he argue quite powerfully for agnosticism here?

Speak Soon hopefully.

Chris.








From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "chris peck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: Everything-List List 
Subject: Re: joining.
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 15:55:10 +0200


Le 30-juin-05, à 12:57, chris peck a écrit :



'intuition is always like believing that the earth is flat.'(BM)

I disagree. People believed the earth was flat because it looked flat, 
they didnt intuit this idea. Intuition is not just the absence of any 
doubt about a proposition, intuition is active not passive.



Well I can agree. My "earth is flat" was perhaps not a good example. I just 
like it because it makes the pointing toward the idea of local truth. Earth 
*is* flat locally.




For many reasons I think that is wrong.

Re: joining.

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 30-juin-05, à 12:57, chris peck a écrit :



'intuition is always like believing that the earth is flat.'(BM)

I disagree. People believed the earth was flat because it looked flat, 
they didnt intuit this idea. Intuition is not just the absence of any 
doubt about a proposition, intuition is active not passive.



Well I can agree. My "earth is flat" was perhaps not a good example. I 
just like it because it makes the pointing toward the idea of local 
truth. Earth *is* flat locally.




For many reasons I think that is wrong. Intuition is experience in 
action, it is functioning wisdom. It is refined and precise, and 
almost always right.



... always right locally. Don't take this as dismissing intuition. Of 
course I relate intution and first person knowledge and Brouwer's 
intutionism, and all this with some purpose in mind related to the main 
points discussed here. We will recur again on all this.




Im troubled by the extent to which counter intuitive ideas are 
embraced seemingly /because/ they are counter intuitive. It almost 
becomes the case that the more counter intuitive a hypothesis is, the 
more we trust it. Theoretical physics is testament to that surely?



Here I disagree. Surely modern physics makes many counter intuitive, 
but if you look at history you see that physicist take time to accept 
them.




What is counter intuitive about the DH is that it offers no 
understandable mechanism for its conclusion.



Like in classical logic. You can prove things without constructing them.



This is what immediately strikes one when you read the DH for the 
first time, there is an air of supernatural about it. How can the 
eventual population of the universe - however reference classes are 
defined - ever have a  backwardly causal relationship with a cataclysm 
today?



But that was not the goal. Accepting the premisses and the 
reasoning-ways you get the conclusions, even if you don't see the 
"causal" links.






Furthermore, im sure that your expressed belief in the truth of the DH 
doesnt /actually/ interfere with your day to day routine.



As I said I find the DH correct, I just don't buy its hypotheses (nor 
to be sure the idea of absolute self-sampling among humans, why not 
bacteria).




You argue with folk like me, rather than build bunkers in preparation 
for the apocalypse. Why?



Here I totally differ from "Leslie". Would I bought the DH (reasoning + 
premisses), I would definitely not build a bunker. The "beauty" of the 
DH argument, is that, as you told yourself, he does not refer to 
"causality" or "concrete reasons", so that if DH is correct there is 
absolutely no point in trying to build a bunker to prevent it. If the 
humans solve all "human problems and prevent all risk of apocalypse, or 
build bunker for all citizens" then the DH entails we will all die for 
an unknown reason. But as I said the DH premisses do not make sense for 
me.




This is quite obvious from the ease with which counter intuitive 
conclusions can be derived from baysean reasoning in conjunction with 
1rst person perspectives generally.



I agree. In particular Leslie error (imo) is to mix 1 and 3 person 
reasoning in a non genuine way.



Anyway Im arguing more than I wanted to about all this. I ought to go 
and download one of your papers.



If you read the SANE paper I would like to know if you follow the UDA 
(the Universal Dovetailer Argument) which shows that IF the comp 
hypothesis is true THEN physics is (in a constructive sense) a branch 
of computer science. Take it easy and don't hesitate to make comments 
for any step of the reasoning. Some on this list agrees physicality 
could be secondary and could or should emerge from some relative or 
absolute measure on the set of "Observer-Moments". We disagree on what 
are exactly those OMs, or about the way to analyze the "measure", etc.
As you see we dig deep: the primitive nature of nature is really where 
Aristotle opposed himself against Plato, and since 2300 years most 
follows Aristotle.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

Re: joining.

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Chris,

   Does it not seem like we should "trust our intuitions" with regards to 
the questions we ask, and "trust the facts" when it comes to our beliefs?


Kindest regards,

Stephen

- Original Message - 
From: "chris peck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: 
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 6:57 AM
Subject: Re: joining.



Hi Bruno;

'intuition is always like believing that the earth is flat.'

I disagree. People believed the earth was flat because it looked flat, 
they didnt intuit this idea. Intuition is not just the absence of any 
doubt about a proposition, intuition is active not passive. I intuitively 
dismiss the DH, I intuitively sense someone is angry with me etc. Not 
raising questions about whether the earth is flat is experiential naivity, 
not intuition leading us astray.


In the case of deductive reasoning, Euclid's fifth postulate is 
intuitively troublesome, intuition begs us to examine it futher, Intuition 
is what reminds us that there is a problem in it somewhere. Intuition is 
not the thing that prevents us from examining the definition of 'point'.



But even if Im wrong on that, even if intuition is responsible for such 
errors, I think there is a danger of over emphesising examples like 'flat 
earth theory' as if it is common for intuition to lead to error, or that 
intuition is naive. For many reasons I think that is wrong. Intuition is 
experience in action, it is functioning wisdom. It is refined and precise, 
and almost always right.



'my intuition is that I should not follow my intuition :) But 
analytically, I tend to believe that the doomsday argument is a definite 
quite convincing argument that the doomsday is for soon'


Im troubled by the extent to which counter intuitive ideas are embraced 
seemingly /because/ they are counter intuitive. It almost becomes the case 
that the more counter intuitive a hypothesis is, the more we trust it. 
Theoretical physics is testament to that surely?


What is counter intuitive about the DH is that it offers no understandable 
mechanism for its conclusion. This is what immediately strikes one when 
you read the DH for the first time, there is an air of supernatural about 
it. How can the eventual population of the universe - however reference 
classes are defined - ever have a  backwardly causal relationship with a 
cataclysm today? Johnathon touched upon this in one of his latest posts. 
Very really the DH supposes that unrealised futures effect the present. 
This is different from the supposedly 'counter intuitive' conclusion that 
the earth is an orb rather than flat. There is nothing illogical or 
conceptually difficult about the earth being spherical rather than flat, I 
can picture either, however, i cant picture how a possible population 
count in the future could effect  what happens now.


Then when examining other baysean thought experiments, it begins to become 
clear that there is nothing unique about the DH and its superstitious 
conclusions. The supernatural infects many thought experiments like it, 
and again this just gets my intuition buzzing. The problem is with the 
logic, not the world.


Furthermore, im sure that your expressed belief in the truth of the DH 
doesnt /actually/ interfere with your day to day routine. You argue with 
folk like me, rather than build bunkers in preparation for the apocalypse. 
Why? If not because basically you dont agree with it. The DH is a 
conclusion we endevour to refute, not embrace. But, lets say the end of 
the world is next saturday. My point is really that of the many reasons 
that the world might end, there are no references to any of them in the DH 
that should lead us to trust it. We can perhaps talk about foxes and 
rabbits, of populations increasing and competition for food and it looks 
like the DH maybe has a point, but really the DH makes no reference to 
these things.


Its lack of explanatory mechanism is obvious. Intuitively then it 
collapses into superstition. Its an untempered bell curve being badly 
interpreted. This is quite obvious from the ease with which counter 
intuitive conclusions can be derived from baysean reasoning in conjunction 
with 1rst person perspectives generally.


Anyway Im arguing more than I wanted to about all this. I ought to go and 
download one of your papers.



Chris. :)

Re: joining.

[chris peck]

Hi Bruno;

'intuition is always like believing that the earth is flat.'

I disagree. People believed the earth was flat because it looked flat, they 
didnt intuit this idea. Intuition is not just the absence of any doubt about 
a proposition, intuition is active not passive. I intuitively dismiss the 
DH, I intuitively sense someone is angry with me etc. Not raising questions 
about whether the earth is flat is experiential naivity,  not intuition 
leading us astray.


In the case of deductive reasoning, Euclid's fifth postulate is intuitively 
troublesome, intuition begs us to examine it futher, Intuition is what 
reminds us that there is a problem in it somewhere. Intuition is not the 
thing that prevents us from examining the definition of 'point'.



But even if Im wrong on that, even if intuition is responsible for such 
errors, I think there is a danger of over emphesising examples like 'flat 
earth theory' as if it is common for intuition to lead to error, or that 
intuition is naive. For many reasons I think that is wrong. Intuition is 
experience in action, it is functioning wisdom. It is refined and precise, 
and almost always right.



'my intuition is that I should not follow my intuition :) But analytically, 
I tend to believe that the doomsday argument is a definite quite convincing 
argument that the doomsday is for soon'


Im troubled by the extent to which counter intuitive ideas are embraced 
seemingly /because/ they are counter intuitive. It almost becomes the case 
that the more counter intuitive a hypothesis is, the more we trust it. 
Theoretical physics is testament to that surely?


What is counter intuitive about the DH is that it offers no understandable 
mechanism for its conclusion. This is what immediately strikes one when you 
read the DH for the first time, there is an air of supernatural about it. 
How can the eventual population of the universe - however reference classes 
are defined - ever have a  backwardly causal relationship with a cataclysm 
today? Johnathon touched upon this in one of his latest posts. Very really 
the DH supposes that unrealised futures effect the present. This is 
different from the supposedly 'counter intuitive' conclusion that the earth 
is an orb rather than flat. There is nothing illogical or conceptually 
difficult about the earth being spherical rather than flat, I can picture 
either, however, i cant picture how a possible population count in the 
future could effect  what happens now.


Then when examining other baysean thought experiments, it begins to become 
clear that there is nothing unique about the DH and its superstitious 
conclusions. The supernatural infects many thought experiments like it, and 
again this just gets my intuition buzzing. The problem is with the logic, 
not the world.


Furthermore, im sure that your expressed belief in the truth of the DH 
doesnt /actually/ interfere with your day to day routine. You argue with 
folk like me, rather than build bunkers in preparation for the apocalypse. 
Why? If not because basically you dont agree with it. The DH is a conclusion 
we endevour to refute, not embrace. But, lets say the end of the world is 
next saturday. My point is really that of the many reasons that the world 
might end, there are no references to any of them in the DH that should lead 
us to trust it. We can perhaps talk about foxes and rabbits, of populations 
increasing and competition for food and it looks like the DH maybe has a 
point, but really the DH makes no reference to these things.


Its lack of explanatory mechanism is obvious. Intuitively then it collapses 
into superstition. Its an untempered bell curve being badly interpreted. 
This is quite obvious from the ease with which counter intuitive conclusions 
can be derived from baysean reasoning in conjunction with 1rst person 
perspectives generally.


Anyway Im arguing more than I wanted to about all this. I ought to go and 
download one of your papers.



Chris. :)


From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "chris peck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: everything-list@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: joining.
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 20:19:46 +0200

Hi Chris,

Le 29-juin-05, à 17:49, chris peck a écrit :


I'ld suggest its a matter of how intuition is used. My intuition can only 
guide me in my enquiries, your intuition only you in yours. I cant 
persuade you of the truth of a statement by appealing to my intuitive 
feelings about it, obviously. Nevertheless, I think it is the light that 
guides enquiry. I hope it is for everyone, though clearly with Leslie and 
others seem more attracted to the counter intuitive, I have no idea why.



I agree there is a sense where only intuition is really the root of 
"conclusiveness", but  intuition is always like believing that the earth is 
flat. It is rooted in locality. So globally "the other of myself" is 
always, at fi

Re: joining.

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Chris,

Le 29-juin-05, à 17:49, chris peck a écrit :


I'ld suggest its a matter of how intuition is used. My intuition can 
only guide me in my enquiries, your intuition only you in yours. I 
cant persuade you of the truth of a statement by appealing to my 
intuitive feelings about it, obviously. Nevertheless, I think it is 
the light that guides enquiry. I hope it is for everyone, though 
clearly with Leslie and others seem more attracted to the counter 
intuitive, I have no idea why.



I agree there is a sense where only intuition is really the root of 
"conclusiveness", but  intuition is always like believing that the 
earth is flat. It is rooted in locality. So globally "the other of 
myself" is always, at first counterintuitive: the earth is not flat! 
The root of conviction are local but when you try to see the border of 
what the light can enlighten it is not so astonishing to be astonished, 
surprised, and eventually to develop some intuition on some 
counter-intuitive feature of reality (whatever it could be).
Sometime I say that common sense is the unique tool to go beyond common 
sense, I could say that for intuition. I am attracted by intuition and 
counter-intuition. I am fond of both Cantor and Brouwer. (and I add for 
later: I love both S4Grz and G which are two systems of modal logic 
which go, arguably with the comp hyp) at the heart of intuition and 
conter-intuition.





Take the Doomsday Hypothesis, its wrong. Even if the world ended 
tommorow, it would still be the case that the Doomsday Hypothesis did 
not predict it to any satisfactory meaning of the word 'predict'. 
Intuitively, I'ld just say it was luck that someone considered the DH 
on the day before. Intuitively, I think that is obvious. But intuition 
doesnt explain WHY the Doomsday Hypothesis is wrong, just that it is. 
Intuition is not analytical and really it is this that prevents it 
from having much persuasive power. But looking at Bostrum and others, 
its clear how they rely on intuition. Unless the DH can be tempered in 
some manner, then they tend to agree that its conclusion is reason 
enough to dismiss it.



You illustrate a difficult idea (intuition) with a difficult problem 
(the Doomsday argument).
Here, my intuition is that I should not follow my intuition :)  But 
analytically, I tend to believe that the doomsday argument is a 
definite quite convincing argument that the doomsday is for soon, once 
we accept Newton (on matter) and Aristotle (on mind). I am agnostic 
about that, but I do think that the comp hypothesis makes quickly 
Newton wrong on matter and Aristotle wrong on mind, so comp is immune 
against the doomsday argument (confirming perhaps your intuition if 
comp is true).






'The best one, in my opinion are those theories which justifies the 
ultimate unnameableness of the first person.'


Do you mean private by 'unnameable'?



But I cannot even be sure it is private. I think I see what you mean, 
and the unameability of the first person by the first person will 
*appear* most probably private. But I'm open to the ide that we share 
the deepest intuition and I am neutral on the question how many persons 
exists really. At least with comp it is possible to explain why those 
questions are hard, even with (apparant) oversimplifications.





Are you talking about something akin to Nagel's characterisation of 
mind? That it is subjective and consequently indescribable by a 3rd 
person account?



I think it is related.




'as I show in my PhD thesis (see my url). comp can explain 
(meta-justify) why the

ultimate evidence is "conclusive" but ineffable.'

I'll give it a go, sounds interesting.



The game consists in taking the computationalist hypothesis, in some 
rather precise form, totally seriously. In the literature those who 
does that in general present it as an argument ad absurdo of the 
falsity of mechanism. They "prove" comp -> false. But actually if you 
look at the details they just prove "comp -> (Newton/Aristotle is 
false). Actually comp proves something "near false". We can expect that 
comp leads to counterintuitive propositions, but that is relative: 
Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, and some other were open for the kind of 
reality which I suspect is made necessary by comp. In actual physics 
the closer conception to what comp makes inescapable is Quantum 
Mechanics without Collapse, that is Everett, Deutch...
But neither Everett nor Deutsch takes the comp hypothesis 
"sufficiently" seriously. Deutsch is forced to a revisionist view on 
Church thesis to make it fitting with his physicalist conception of the 
multiverse for example.







'I have use the modal logics of self-reference (Solovay's G and G'). 
Have you heard about them?'


Nope, im new to a lot of this - thus my joining. Is self reference the 
same as self p

Re: joining.

[chris peck]

Hi Bruno;

'Still I believe that no "scientific
communication" can refer ultimately on the intuitive content, which,
even from the subject point of view is just unjustifiable.'

I'ld suggest its a matter of how intuition is used. My intuition can only 
guide me in my enquiries, your intuition only you in yours. I cant persuade 
you of the truth of a statement by appealing to my intuitive feelings about 
it, obviously. Nevertheless, I think it is the light that guides enquiry. I 
hope it is for everyone, though clearly with Leslie and others seem more 
attracted to the counter intuitive, I have no idea why.


Take the Doomsday Hypothesis, its wrong. Even if the world ended tommorow, 
it would still be the case that the Doomsday Hypothesis did not predict it 
to any satisfactory meaning of the word 'predict'. Intuitively, I'ld just 
say it was luck that someone considered the DH on the day before. 
Intuitively, I think that is obvious. But intuition doesnt explain WHY the 
Doomsday Hypothesis is wrong, just that it is. Intuition is not analytical 
and really it is this that prevents it from having much persuasive power. 
But looking at Bostrum and others, its clear how they rely on intuition. 
Unless the DH can be tempered in some manner, then they tend to agree that 
its conclusion is reason enough to dismiss it.


'The best one, in my opinion are those theories which justifies the ultimate 
unnameableness of the first person.'


Do you mean private by 'unnameable'? Are you talking about something akin to 
Nagel's characterisation of mind? That it is subjective and consequently 
indescribable by a 3rd person account?


'as I show in my PhD thesis (see my url). comp can explain (meta-justify) 
why the

ultimate evidence is "conclusive" but ineffable.'

I'll give it a go, sounds interesting.

'I have use the modal logics of self-reference (Solovay's G and G'). Have 
you heard about them?'


Nope, im new to a lot of this - thus my joining. Is self reference the same 
as self perception? you know as well as refering to myself, i can introspect 
to a degree too. Mind may well be inscrutable beyond introspection. I kind 
of think it is, though self reference is second nature.


'Also, do you know the paper by Hardegree which shows that quantum
logic can be seen as a Lewis-Stalnaker logic of the counterfactuals?'

hmmm. I thought Stalnaker and Lewis were opposed to one another when it came 
to counterfactuals. Lewis believes they are in some sense real, sort of like 
Deutsche's multiverse, or  infinate number of m-branes and so on, in which 
anything logically possible has been actualised at least in one universe or 
another. I think Stalnaker would disagree with that, possible worlds are 
just convenient ways of considering possibility, rather than actuality. im 
sure this is all obvious to you, I'll read your PHD and see if I agree with 
that. I hope there isnt too much math.:)




From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "chris peck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: everything-list@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: joining.
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:53:03 +0200


Le 28-juin-05, à 17:05, chris peck wrote (quoting Kripke)

'Some philosophers think that something's having intuitive content is very 
inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think that it is very heavy 
evidence in favor of anything myself. I really don't know, in a way, what 
more conclusive evidence one can have about anything, ultimately 
speaking.'



I agree with Kripke. Still I believe that no "scientific communication" can 
refer ultimately on the intuitive content, which, even from the subject 
point of view is just unjustifiable.
The talker must bet enough common intuition to partially justify, 
informally, what he has been able to make purely 3-person communicable to 
its collegues.


Of course we can talk on "theories *on* the first person". We can agree on 
axioms. The best one, in my opinion are those theories which justifies the 
ultimate unnameableness of the first person.


The computationnalist hypothesis (comp) in the theoretical cognitive 
science (alias philosophy of mind) does just that, as I show in my PhD 
thesis (see my url). comp can explain (meta-justify) why the ultimate 
evidence is "conclusive" but ineffable.


For this, I have use the modal logics of self-reference (Solovay's G and 
G').

Have you heard about them?

Also, do you know the paper by Hardegree which shows that quantum logic can 
be seen as a Lewis-Stalnaker logic of the counterfactuals?


Pardon my questioning.

Welcome to the list,

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: joining.

[Stephen Paul King]

Hi Chris,

   Welcome! I look forward to your posts. ;-)


   BTW, I have neglected to post my own "Joining" statement, so let me 
introduce myself. I am a self-taught student of philosophy of science, 
specializing on the Problems of Time and Consciousness. I somewhat follow 
Chalmers' ideas on consciousness and subscribe to Hitoshi Kitada's theory of 
Local Time (www.kitada.com). I am a co-moderator of the Time List 
(yahoogroups.com).



Kindest regards,

Stephen

- Original Message - 
From: "chris peck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 11:05 AM
Subject: joining.



Hello;

My name is Chris Peck, this is my joining post. I have not seen anyone 
elses, so im not entirely sure what's expected.


I have Ba in Philosophy from University College London, and an MSc in IT 
from the same institution.


Im interested in philosophy of science - particularly the dispute between 
Popper, Feyerabend, Lakatos etc; philosophy of mind; of language; logical 
theory; personal identity and have recently become quite interested in 
possible world theory through the writings of Plantinga, Stalnaker and so 
on.


I think my favorite philosophical quote, indeed my guiding principle if 
you like, comes from 'Naming and Necessity' by Saul Kripke, it goes:


'Some philosophers think that something's having intuitive content is very 
inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think that it is very heavy 
evidence in favor of anything myself. I really don't know, in a way, what 
more conclusive evidence one can have about anything, ultimately 
speaking.'


Chris.

Re: joining.

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 28-juin-05, à 17:05, chris peck wrote (quoting Kripke)

'Some philosophers think that something's having intuitive content is 
very inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think that it is very 
heavy evidence in favor of anything myself. I really don't know, in a 
way, what more conclusive evidence one can have about anything, 
ultimately speaking.'



I agree with Kripke. Still I believe that no "scientific communication" 
can refer ultimately on the intuitive content, which, even from the 
subject point of view is just unjustifiable.
The talker must bet enough common intuition to partially justify, 
informally, what he has been able to make purely 3-person communicable 
to its collegues.


Of course we can talk on "theories *on* the first person". We can agree 
on axioms. The best one, in my opinion are those theories which 
justifies the ultimate unnameableness of the first person.


The computationnalist hypothesis (comp) in the theoretical cognitive 
science (alias philosophy of mind) does just that, as I show in my PhD 
thesis (see my url). comp can explain (meta-justify) why the ultimate 
evidence is "conclusive" but ineffable.


For this, I have use the modal logics of self-reference (Solovay's G 
and G').

Have you heard about them?

Also, do you know the paper by Hardegree which shows that quantum logic 
can be seen as a Lewis-Stalnaker logic of the counterfactuals?


Pardon my questioning.

Welcome to the list,

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

joining.

[chris peck]

Hello;

My name is Chris Peck, this is my joining post. I have not seen anyone 
elses, so im not entirely sure what's expected.


I have Ba in Philosophy from University College London, and an MSc in IT 
from the same institution.


Im interested in philosophy of science - particularly the dispute between 
Popper, Feyerabend, Lakatos etc; philosophy of mind; of language; logical 
theory; personal identity and have recently become quite interested in 
possible world theory through the writings of Plantinga, Stalnaker and so 
on.


I think my favorite philosophical quote, indeed my guiding principle if you 
like, comes from 'Naming and Necessity' by Saul Kripke, it goes:


'Some philosophers think that something's having intuitive content is very 
inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think that it is very heavy evidence 
in favor of anything myself. I really don't know, in a way, what more 
conclusive evidence one can have about anything, ultimately speaking.'


Chris.

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Joining Post

[daddycaylor]

Hello everyone,
I have an M.S. in Mathematics.  I've done casual reading, e.g. The Loss of Certainty (Kline), The Emperor's New Mind (Penrose), The Elegant Universe (Greene), Pensees (Pascal), lots of papers online.
Tom Caylor
 

JOINING

[Patrick Leahy]

Hi, I'm Paddy Leahy. I'm an astrophysicist and observational cosmologist 
with a long-standing interest in the foundations of QM.

==
Dr J. P. Leahy, University of Manchester,
Jodrell Bank Observatory, School of Physics & Astronomy,
Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 9DL, UK
Tel - +44 1477 572636, Fax - +44 1477 571618

Joining post: Jonathan Colvin

[Jonathan Colvin]

Hello...

I am subscribing to this list, and as requested by the list-creator, here is
a brief introduction of moi-meme.

I found this list while Google x-referencing "doomsday argument x reference
class". I am interested in metaphysika such as the DDA, MWI, Simulation
Argument, Anthropic Principle, and most other interesting philosci issues
(Barrow/Tipler, Bostrom, Dennet, Everett, Wolfram etc.) 

My background is Physics and Philosophy bachelors (U of Toronto), followed
by a stint as a technical writer for Atomic Energy of Canada, then for
various Internet/Tech entities, finally out of the tech field completely and
driving a sailboat for a living in Galiano Island, British Columbia.

Current bugbears include N.B.'s Simulation Argument and, as noted above, the
DDA.

Cheers,

Jonathan Colvin

JOINING post

[Jacques Bailhache]

Hi everybody,
My name is Jacques Bailhache. I am a programmer. I am actually living near 
Paris. I am interested in logic, mathematics, physics and other sciences, 
and also metaphysics and philosophy.

My web pages are :
http://www.geocities.com/log907/
http://www.chez.com/log/
I explain my metaphysical theory in some of these pages, the main index of 
it are :
http://www.geocities.com/log907/text/reflmph/english/reflres.htm
http://www.chez.com/log/text/reflmph/english/reflres.htm

Jacques.
_
MSN Messenger  http://g.msn.fr/FR1001/866 : dialoguez en direct et 
gratuitement avec vos amis !

Joining

[Danny Mayes]

Hi everyone!  I have been a fan of this list for some time, reading the 
archive.  I am an attorney with no educational background in science, so 
I probably will mostly keep my mouth shut and continue to read.  With 
that said, I do have a great deal of interest in these topics, and have 
read a number of books and papers on the subject matter.

Given my background, my approach is often more logical and philosophical 
than science based.  

I look forward to further enlightening discussion!
Danny Mayes

Re: JOINING post

[Doriano Brogioli]

andy wrote:
Hi Everyone,

This is really a cool list, where even the most exotic
scenarios are seriously taken into account. 

I'm andy, have mostly worked in IT during the 13 years 
since my physics graduation. 

I like simple theories. You may notice this in future 
postings and on my web site.

Hopefully some day you will find some more lines about 
me at

www.universes.org/a/andy.html
It doesn't exist
Doriano

Cheers
 andy
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

JOINING post

[andy]

Hi Everyone,

This is really a cool list, where even the most exotic
scenarios are seriously taken into account. 

I'm andy, have mostly worked in IT during the 13 years 
since my physics graduation. 

I like simple theories. You may notice this in future 
postings and on my web site.

Hopefully some day you will find some more lines about 
me at

www.universes.org/a/andy.html

Cheers
 andy

 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

JOINING

[Kory Heath]

Hi Everyone -

I've recently subscribed to the Everything List, and have been browsing 
through the archives. I have to confess that I find some of the discussion 
there incomprehensible, but nevertheless it's exciting to find people who 
take this very unusual idea seriously.

My background is in Computer Science. I've been reading people like Daniel 
Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter for years, and I accept in general the 
"computational", "algorithmic", or "functionalist" view of mind (though all 
of these terms mean different things to different people). I'm intrigued by 
the Computational Physics concepts expounded by Fredkin, Wolfram, et. al., 
but I don't understand Quantum Physics, so I really don't feel qualified to 
judge the specifics.

Years ago I was struck with the thought that the Many Worlds Interpretation 
of QM *seemed* to imply that I will never die. I never knew how seriously 
to take this idea, since I couldn't even get a straight answer from my 
physicist friends about what things were impossible in QM as opposed to 
highly improbable. (Is it impossible in QM for an elephant to suddenly 
materialize in my room? Or is it just highly improbable? I still don't know!)

Speculations about the implications of QM seemed less interesting to me 
than questions like "Why is our physics true rather than some other 
physics? Why does our universe have this property of "physical existence", 
when other perfectly good universes (like Conway's Life) don't?" It seemed 
to me that the most sensible answer to this question is that universes like 
Conway's Life have just as much "physical existence" (whatever that means) 
as our own.

Most of my thinking on these issues has been devoted to defending this 
position philosophically - starting with some brand of mathematical or 
computational realism, and then arguing that this ultimately implies 
"mathematical physicalism". Much less of my thinking has been devoted to 
working out the implications of this mathematical physicalism. It certainly 
seems to imply that I will never die. However, I would say that in general 
my current position on the implications of the AUH is quite a bit more 
agnostic or skeptical than that of many of the people on this list. 
Currently, I can't see how to apply the concept of "measure" to the 
ensemble of universes (or the ensemble of 
"my-next-possible-observer-moments", or whatever), and I'm not entirely 
sure the idea even makes sense. I'm not even convinced that the regularity 
we perceive in our own universe (i.e. the lack of "white talking rabbits") 
is something that requires explaining. Perhaps I will come to view this as 
a problem as I continue to think about it.

-- Kory

JOINING

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Hi there. I have been reading the list for a quite long time, never posted
so far. I wish to contribute to the ongoing discussion on computability of
the universe, and future discussions, so this is my joining post. I studied
theoretical physics in the 70s and 80s, then I moved to computer science
then administration. I know many of the most frequent posters from other
lists.
My home page is at:
http://www.femtopizza.net/gpmap/

JOINING post

[Georges Quenot]

Hi all,

I am Georges Quénot. I have a PhD in Computer Science. I have worked
on computer architectures dedicated to speech recognition and image
processing. I am now more on the software side and I am working in
the field of Multimedia Information Retrieval. My main work is not
so related to the subject of this group but I have personal interest
into it. I also have a background in Physics and Biology.
My professional home page: http://clips.imag.fr/mrim/georges.quenot/

Georges.

JOINING post

[David Barret-Lennard]

Hi,

 

I have a degree in Maths, and
Physics and have worked in the computer industry for the last 15 years.

 

David

 

JOINING post

[Eric Cavalcanti]

Hi,

My name is Eric Cavalcanti, and I am joining this list.
As was solicited in the website, I am sending this Joining post with details
of my background.

I am a physicist, recently received my MSc in atomic physics.

I have been participating in the Fabric of Reality list for some time, so I
have some familiarity (but no extensive knowledge) with some of the topics
discussed in this list...

Seems the discussions here are also very interesting.

Regards,
-Eric.

Joining

[incarn81]

Hello
 
I'm mainly an idoit, sometimes a savant.  I 
get most of the references that I've read so far, but don't really have a deep 
technical background in any one area.  
Can't wait to catch up on the 
archives! 

JOINING post

[Christopher Altman]

08 July 2003

Sign me up  ...

Bio / background : http://www.umsl.edu/~altmanc/news.html



..
Christopher Altman
Chairman
First Committee on Disarmament and International Security
United Nations International Student Conference Amsterdam
...


<>

"JOINING post"

[Ben Goertzel]

Hi all,

I'm Ben Goertzel.  This is my initial joining post

I'm a math PhD originally, spent 8 years as an academic in math, CS and
psych departments.  Have been in the software industry for the last 5 years.
My primary research is in Artificial General Intelligence (see
www.realai.net) -- my friends and I are building a genuinely intelligent
software program, a multi-year project that's been going on for some time.
Am also working in bioinformatics, analyzing gene expression data

Before building a thinking machine became an almost all-consuming obsession,
I spent some time trying to create a unified physics theory.  It was to be a
discrete theory based on the discrete Clifford algebra & the Cayley algebra.
I'm also interested in the physics applications of the notion of mind
creating reality while reality creates mind (John Wheeler and all that...).

I studied quantum gravity, chromodynamics, string theory and lots of other
fun stuff in the late 80's and early 90's, but haven't really kept current
with technical physics, and all that stuff is pretty rusty for me now, but I
still find it fascinating...

Ben Goertzel
www.goertzel.org/work.html

"JOINING post"

[Vikee1]

My name is Lloyd "David" Raub.  I'm a retired executive from Ohio State 
University.  I have a Ph.D. in Public Administration from Penn. State and my 
interests now include TOE's, alternate universes, MWI, inflationary & other 
cosmologies {cyclic universes, quasi steady state, plasma,etc.} I am looking 
forward to enjoying the discussions on this thread. thanks & HELLO EVERYBODY. 
 Dave Raub 

R: JOINING posts

[scerir]

> Here are a few words describing my background. 
> Ok, who wants to go next?

scerir = serafino cerulli-irelli
born in Rome, 1949
physicist at Rome Un. La Sapienza
(during '70s and '80s)
now a farmer, and sometimes a lawyer,
but still reading papers & books 
about quantum fields, econophysics, 
information theory, relativity, cubism.
s.
[favorite sport: target shooting (pistol)]

favorite books? that's difficult, anyway
last month I've read:

- J.T. Cushing, E. McMullin (eds)
Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory
(Reflections on Bell's Theorem)
Notre Dame Press, 1989

- K. Mainzer
Thinking in Complexity
Springer, 1997

Re: JOINING posts

[H J Ruhl]

I am a licensed Professional Engineer.
BSEE The University of Illinois - Champaign/Urbana; 1966
MSEE Syracuse University; 1970
Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu
A member of Mensa

 From 1966 to about 1987 I worked in the power semiconductor/power 
electronics industry.  I published some papers on the subject such as in 
the IEEE "Transactions on Electron Devices."

Since 1987 I have been chief engineer at a medium size aerospace 
company.  My most recent publication [coauthored with my brother] is in the 
Winter 1997 U. C. Davis Law Review and is an application of complex system 
ideas to illuminating the effects of the burgeoning of the law.

My interest in material relevant to the list dates back a rather long 
time.  About 10 years ago this interest increased due to a general 
dissatisfaction with the statistical approach to the founding of 
thermodynamics during a dab at writing a social science fiction novel.  The 
intended moral is somewhat reflected in the title of Brian Czech's book: 
"Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train" though I propose a purposely cyclic 
economy/population since "steady state" seems an empty but dangerous quest 
for so many reasons.  [Growth is the derivative of size and when it comes 
to an economy entrepreneurs can find fertile ground when it is either 
positive or negative and the required rule set can have low complexity - 
the latter seemingly coinciding with an interpretation of Joseph Tainter's 
"The collapse of Complex Societies".  Being in the aerospace business I see 
the negative marginal utility of new rules every day.]  The social science 
fiction approach to the moral seems a little bit like the possible 
background driver for the book "The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven and 
Jerry Pournelle.

About four or five years ago this line of thought lead me to the idea that 
our universe could be based on no net information.  I was then pointed to 
this list by participants on another list.

My current approach the issue of origins is to try to find our universe in 
a zero information Everything type of ensemble.  I am not looking for why 
we are in our universe because I see any result - such as "our universe and 
its close relations form some major fraction of the population" - as net 
information in the Everything and therefore I reject such a search as a 
departure from and  incompatible with a zero information 
foundation.  Further I see machine based approaches such as a UD as also 
requiring the Everything to have non zero information and so currently 
reject them.

My current interests are to further refine my model based on the idea of a 
zero information ensemble of counterfactuals, look for possible 
observational evidence to support it, and see if I can make any predictions 
with it.  For example my discrete point space grid idea would be just a 
ground condition - any number of excited conditions would be possible 
including something a little like a "gas" of points.  Thus I see no end to 
the "particles" we will observe with ever higher energy machines, but I 
currently see no place for an association of a "particle" and what we see 
as gravity.  I currently see no "Free Will" nor do I see a central [non 
passive] role for an "observer".  The rules of evolution of a universe - 
which I see as a large lookup table applied locally to each of the discrete 
points rather like a cellular automaton - would be strictly followed unless 
a state to state transition corresponded with the injection of true noise 
from the dynamic of the ensemble.

I see lookup tables [all alphabet and {if - then}'s] as below formal 
systems so I do not see formal system mathematics or any of its member 
systems as pointers to the correct base model whatever it may be.  However, 
the extension of the base model to particular universes can make good use 
of such systems to the extent that such systems of mathematics are large 
scale [spanning many rows of the table and many state to state iterations 
and many cells within the automaton] approximations to the lookup 
tables.  Further the arrival at such a lookup table base involves a "logic" 
in the sense that the components of the Everything must form a complete and 
thus zero information set of counterfactuals.

My ultimate interest is in "life" and its nature and behavior especially 
its possible dependence on and response to true noise in its universe and 
how to build reasonably robust social systems that would attract all 
varieties of "reasonable" people.

I feel this list has an excellent chance of eventually arriving at what 
seems to me to be the collective goal - a simple explanation for what I 
believe to be my environment.  I also think the list needs a FAQ like 
document of a sort that suits it.  I made an attempt to write one but ran 
out of time for awhile.

As to my reading I own at least 150 books with relevant content that I have 
read or browsed.
As to weather any of these seem to be an identifiable near precursor to my 
c

Re: JOINING posts

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Saibal,

At 0:26 +0200 1/06/2002, Saibal Mitra wrote:
>I think that statistical physics, and especially renormalization group
>techniques, are essential if one wishes to derive the physics that we
>observe from abstract concepts like a measure defined on a set of computer
>programs.

As I said I agree with you. But do you really mean a measure defined
on a set of computer programs, or a set of computer program *states*?

In my setting it is the latter although it can and must eventually lead
to a measure on consistent *sequences* of computer program states.
(This is reminiscent of the passage made by Isham going from the Quantum
logics of states to the quantum logics of histories).

The states must be considered also as seen by the machines themselves,
should I add. cf the 1-person/3-person distinction (which I attempt to
capture by the variant of self-reference logics.

I said we meet but of course we are not yet at the Stanley-Livingston Junction,
but let us say we each begin to appear on our respective horizon :)

Regards,

Bruno

Re: JOINING posts

[Saibal Mitra]

I am currently working on my Ph.D. project on statistical physics. I am
familiar with renormalization group techniques and some specialized
techniques for exactly solving models, like the Bethe Ansatz and the
Yang-Baxter equation.

I independently concluded that mathematical existence and physical existence
are the same, by contemplating thought experiments with artificial
intelligence. I think that I got this idea in 1994. I joined this list in
the summer of 2000 and posted some of my thought experiments.

I think that statistical physics, and especially renormalization group
techniques, are essential if one wishes to derive the physics that we
observe from abstract concepts like a measure defined on a set of computer
programs.

Let me conclude by giving some interesting references of books and articles
that are not too technical:

[1] Scaling and renormalization in statistical physics, J. Cardy, Cambridge
University Press

[2] Exactly Solved Models in Statistical Mechanics, R.J. Baxter, Academic
Press, New York, 1982

[3] Renormalization Group Studies of Vertex Models, Saibal Mitra,
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9910031

[4] Determinism and Dissipation in Quantum Gravity, Erice lecture, Gerard 't
Hooft,
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0003005

[5] Entropic Dynamics, Ariel Caticha, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0109068

Re: JOINING posts

[Wei Dai]

On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 05:02:06PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> - Computability and Logic, by George Boolos and Richard Jeffrey (Cambridge
>   University Press (third ed. 1989).

I noticed that a fourth edition just came out in March of this year. This
seems to be THE book for learning metamathematics (and how it relates to
the computability stuff I learned in my theory of computation class) that
I was searching for before seeing Bruno's recommendation. Thanks!

> Unfortunately most mathematicians, including the only   
> local logician, were allergic to Godel's theorem! (not so rare attitude)

Can you elaborate on that please? What specificly were they objecting to?

> I mentionned often the Boolos 1993 as the classical treatise of the (modal)   
> Godelian logics of self-reference (also known as "logics of  
> provability", mainly
> the modal logics G and G* and their children).

Unfortunately at this point (after reading Boolos's _The Logic of 
Provability_) I still don't get what logics of provability have to 
do with the mind/body problem. Please hurry up with your English paper. :)

Re: JOINING posts

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi All,

Wei Dai wrote (in part):


>Perhaps it would help if list members each posts a short biography of
>themselves, and tell us their intellectual backgrounds. What fields are
>you familiar with, what relevant books/papers have you read, etc.? This
>way, if you don't understand someone's post, you can look up his JOINING
>post in the archive and figure out what background he is assuming. I got
>this idea from the SL4 mailing list; maybe it will work here as well.


OK. I am a belgium mathematician from Brussels University (born in 
Germany 1955).
I got a PhD thesis at the french University of Lille (you can download
it from my URL). The subject of the thesis is ..., well almost the very subject
of this list: it is a deductive argument showing that if we take very
seriously the computationnalist hypothesis in the cognitive science, then
the mind body problem is partially reduced into a derivation of the physical
laws from the platonic existence of *all* computations. A consequence is that
physics becomes a branch of "machine's psychology".
How did I find this? My starting obsessive question was "How long lives
an amoeba?", or "Does an amoeba survive its self-replication?". I made public
my first "theory" in 1963 (at school), where I answered positively
the last question. After that, my poor mind transforms itself into a 
battlefield
where two different approaches concerning the amoeba question evolve.
The first approach was biological and mainly mechanist and discrete, the
second approach was chemical and based on the idea that a continuum exists,
which  put a doubt on the biological discreteness. So I got conflicting
craving for biology and chemistry. My first bible-book was the book
by Watson "Molecular Biology of the Gene" (its french version). Its chapter
"The cells obey to the chemical laws" leads me to Pauling books on chemistry.
But I got a feeling that despite appearances biology was more fundamental
that physics. I was suspecting the existence of a more abstract biology capable
of explaining the form of the physical laws, and that it should be so if we
want ever been able to understand the nature of reality and where did it come
from.
In 1971 I discover Logic in "Alice in Wonderland" and soon after I 
discover books
on Godel's theorems containing an abstract (matter independent) explanation of
self-replication processes.
The Godelian logic of self-reference appears to be a good candidate for the
abstract biology and psychology I was searching.
This solved my Chemist/Biology hesitation, and I decided to do math 
at university.
Unfortunately most mathematicians, including the only
local logician, were allergic to Godel's theorem! (not so rare attitude)
I will submit different project
for a thesis in 1977, including a work showing that the bacteria Escherichia
Coli was essentially Turing equivalent. Although biologists and engineers were
interested, the mathematicians were negative (to say the least), so 
much that I get a
depression which leads me to Buddhism and Taoism for years, earning my life by
teaching mathematics or working for private societies (biotechnology), and
using my free-time for meditation and chineese calligraphy, but also more and
more chemistry (again) and quantum chemistry.
10 years later, biologists, physicians (!) and engineers from 
Brussels, but also a
logician from Liege (other city in Belgium) will "force" me to publish a
paper in a proceeding for a meeting at Toulouse around artificial intelligence
and cognitive science, and they will provide me a financement for 
doing a thesis.
The paper "Theoretical computer science and philosophy of mind" (which includes
the result of my thesis except theorem 14) will be
published in 1988 at Toulouse (precise french ref in my thesis).
It contains the comp and quantum suicide argument, the movie graph argument
(one year before Maudlin, I've been lucky!). The logical technical part
has been  shortened for length reasons, though. I will published 
those missing part
in 1991 and 1992: Amoeba, planaria and dreaming machine, Mechanism and Personal
Identity. (ref in the thesis).
Then I will be asked to submit the thesis at Brussels. Due to the continued
harrasment by the same Godel-allergic mathematicians I will eventually (1998)
submit it at the french university of Lille. I'm still working at IRIDIA at
Brussels University. I finance myself like almost everybody at IRIDIA
(cf my URL). Although I got a price for the thesis one year after (in 1999), I
know it will still take some time before people get familiar with the idea.
I know that in this list some people have had very similar intuition and I
encourage them to work them out---despite academical difficulties in front of
novelties.


Strictly speaking the background needed for my work is -Mathematical 
Logic, Quantum
Mechanics and some Co

Re: JOINING posts

[George Levy]

Good idea Wai!

Here are a few words describing my background. 

I graduated from McGill University in Montreal with a master degree in
Electronic Engineering in 1968. My career has spanned many different
fields including electronic hardware design, CPU design, embedded
processors, software design, Kalman filtering and navigation, artificial
intelligence, smart automous vehicles for military air or ground
applications. More lately I invented a dedicated processor for
performing genome analysis. 
Since 1992 I have been working for myself, initially because of the
downturn in the economy due to the end of the cold war, and now because
of my age - age is as detrimental to engineers in the eyes of human
resources managers as it is to women in a beauty contest. Now I have my
own research and development company Quantics, which, at times, is
making money and at other times, struggling, depending on the contracts.
It's nice to have a loving and comprehending wife with a solid
profession during the hard times.
In the course of my work I have come up with many new patentable idea,
some of which generated money. 
Because of the nature of my work, I find that I must be very familar
with the patenting process. For years, I have been filing my own
patents. However, I am finding that marketing is much tougher than
inventing. I am well on my way to become a patent agent and soon it
shall be possible for me to do like Albert and work in a patent office
or work for myself as a patent agent.
I have always been interested in philosophy and physics. The idea of
Quantum immortality came to me independently around 1990 after some
meditation about Schroedinger's cat.  I started writing a book on the
matter. In the course of my research on that book, I came across the
everything list, David Deutsh and and Tegmark's idea. 

George Levy

Wei Dai wrote:
> 
> I find that I often have trouble understanding posts on this mailing list,
> given the wide range of intellectual ground that it covers. It seems that
> people sometimes assume a background in an academic field, and I'm not
> even sure what the field is, or how to get up to date or at least familiar
> with it. On the other hand, sometimes a poster is just a crank and isn't
> making any sense at all. It can be hard to tell the difference.
> 
> Perhaps it would help if list members each posts a short biography of
> themselves, and tell us their intellectual backgrounds. What fields are
> you familiar with, what relevant books/papers have you read, etc.? This
> way, if you don't understand someone's post, you can look up his JOINING
> post in the archive and figure out what background he is assuming. I got
> this idea from the SL4 mailing list; maybe it will work here as well.
> 
> To begin with myself, I work as a cryptographic engineer, which means I
> design and implement computer security mechanisms, with a focus on the
> cryptographic parts. I have a BA in computer science, and have taken
> courses in linguistics, theory of computation, number theory, algebra,
> probability theory, and game theory.
> 
> I think I first encountered the idea that all possible universes exist in
> the novel _Permutation City_ by Greg Egan, and then in Tegmark and
> Schmidhuber's papers. I started this mailing list after reading both of
> those papers.
> 
> I've scanned through _An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its
> Applications_, Ming Li and Paul Vitanyi, and read parts of it in enough
> detail to have found several previously unreported errors. It's about
> algorithmic information theory, and I personally think it is the single
> most important book for list members to read.
> 
> Here are some other books that I've read outside of formal education that
> seem relevant.
> 
> _The Selfish Gene_, Richard Dawkins. Theory of evolution.
> _Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid_, Douglas Hofstadter. On
> self-reference.
> _Maxwell's Demon: Entropy, Information, Computation_. Entropy and the
> physics of computation.
> _Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology_, Stewart Shapiro.
> 
> I'm finding that I don't have enough knowledge about foundations of
> mathematics, foundations of decision theory, and quantum mechanics. I'm
> currently reading the following books to rectify the situation:
> 
> _The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory_, James Joyce
> _A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics_, John S. Townsend
> _Foundations Without Foundationalism : A Case for Second-Order Logic_,
> Stewart Shapiro
> 
> Ok, who wants to go next?

Re: JOINING posts

[Leonard A. Wojcik]

I have not posted to this list before, but I have read many posts with interest.  
Professionally, I do modeling and simulation of air transportation systems, including 
some applications of agent-based modeling, game theory and decision analysis.  I have 
a few publications in these areas.  I have a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy 
(Carnegie-Mellon) and M.S. in Physics (Cornell).  I participate in Santa Fe Institute 
meetings a couple of times per year and have a general interest in complex adaptive 
systems.  Although I'm not a Buddhist scholar by any means, I'm a practicing Buddhist 
and have a basic knowledge of some Buddhist philosophical schools.  Personally, I am 
interested in ontology, and in linking Buddhist philosophy to Western scientific 
ideas.  I've read or perused various books and articles (Dennett, Chalmers, 
Wheeler,... plus various Buddhist texts) relevant to this.

Thanks to everyone on the list,
Len Wojcik
Arlington, VA US

Wei Dai wrote:
> 
> I find that I often have trouble understanding posts on this mailing list,
> given the wide range of intellectual ground that it covers. It seems that
> people sometimes assume a background in an academic field, and I'm not
> even sure what the field is, or how to get up to date or at least familiar
> with it. On the other hand, sometimes a poster is just a crank and isn't
> making any sense at all. It can be hard to tell the difference.
> 
> Perhaps it would help if list members each posts a short biography of
> themselves, and tell us their intellectual backgrounds. What fields are
> you familiar with, what relevant books/papers have you read, etc.? This
> way, if you don't understand someone's post, you can look up his JOINING
> post in the archive and figure out what background he is assuming. I got
> this idea from the SL4 mailing list; maybe it will work here as well.
> 
> To begin with myself, I work as a cryptographic engineer, which means I
> design and implement computer security mechanisms, with a focus on the
> cryptographic parts. I have a BA in computer science, and have taken
> courses in linguistics, theory of computation, number theory, algebra,
> probability theory, and game theory.
> 
> I think I first encountered the idea that all possible universes exist in
> the novel _Permutation City_ by Greg Egan, and then in Tegmark and
> Schmidhuber's papers. I started this mailing list after reading both of
> those papers.
> 
> I've scanned through _An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its
> Applications_, Ming Li and Paul Vitanyi, and read parts of it in enough
> detail to have found several previously unreported errors. It's about
> algorithmic information theory, and I personally think it is the single
> most important book for list members to read.
> 
> Here are some other books that I've read outside of formal education that
> seem relevant.
> 
> _The Selfish Gene_, Richard Dawkins. Theory of evolution.
> _Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid_, Douglas Hofstadter. On
> self-reference.
> _Maxwell's Demon: Entropy, Information, Computation_. Entropy and the
> physics of computation.
> _Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology_, Stewart Shapiro.
> 
> I'm finding that I don't have enough knowledge about foundations of
> mathematics, foundations of decision theory, and quantum mechanics. I'm
> currently reading the following books to rectify the situation:
> 
> _The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory_, James Joyce
> _A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics_, John S. Townsend
> _Foundations Without Foundationalism : A Case for Second-Order Logic_,
> Stewart Shapiro
> 
> Ok, who wants to go next?

Re: JOINING posts

[joseph00]

Dear All,
  I've been lurking for a while while I try to figure out something useful to 
contribute, but figured you should at least know I'm here...
   I'm a postdoctoral research fellow at Cambridge (UK), working in 
palaeontology - specifically, the early evolution of various invertebrate 
groups, and the relationship of physiochemical environmental factors to 
evolutionary patterns. I also have an outside interest in such matters as 
self-organised criticality, in relation to the origin and evolution of life. I 
have a slightly mathematical background, in that I intended to pursue 
theoretical physics before discovering as an undergrad that I enjoyed looking 
at fossils even more. I have practically no background in computing. 
  My interest in this area lies primarily in the philosophical perspective, and 
I admit, in a somewhat less rigorous style than I've experienced here. Saibal 
invited me to this list after reading some comments on another message board 
discussing whether information merely describes physicality, or actually 
defines it. My approach to the area is largely non-mathematical, involving 
mainstream philosophy, and a large pinch of oriental philosophical/religious 
aspects combined with parapsychology. As you can imagine, it has been difficult 
trying to usefully find a way into the discussions!

  As a brief introduction to the sorts of things I've been reading, try:

Penrose, R. The emperors's new mind.
Capra, F. The Tao of Physics
Dennett, D. Consciousness Explained
Evolution books by Steve Jones, Dawkins, Gould etc., as well as a large number 
of specialised papers on Proterozoic and early Phanerozoic evolution.

Complexity and chaos-based books, including those by Kauffman, Lewin and Gleick

Various oriental texts, but particularly the Wen Tzu, Tao Te Ching, poems of Li 
Po, "Cultivating Stillness" 

David-Neel, A. With mystics and Magicians in Tibet

Plus several of the "classic" books on philosophy - Hume, Berkeley, Descartes, 
and anything else I can find, for background.

For the parapsychological side, try the Journal of the Society for Psychical 
Research (very mixed content, but some definitely interesting bits - I 
recommend browsing)

As you can tell, this is a slightly unorthodox selection. However, I am, like 
you, a professional scientist, so please try to think of it merely as a 
different approach to the same problems, rather than a frivolous pursuit to be 
immediately dismissed! I look forward to the point when I can follow your 
arguments fully enough to be able to join in...

All the best,
Joe
Botting

-
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Cambridge
Downing Street
Cambridge CB2 3EQ
Phone: ( +44 ) 1223 333400
Fax: ( +44 ) 1223 333450

Re: JOINING posts

[Lennart Nilsson]

My formal education ended back in the beginnings of the seventies with a
finished MA in sociology and an invitation to get a doctors degree at the
University of Stockholm. But life got in the way.

When my wife died two years ago I decided to write a book in order to
understand better some of my thinkings during all those years. I finished
the book in seven months and have since been trying to get it published.
That has proven very hard since Swedish is a small language. Max Tegmark,
who is swedish, even though he works in USA has read my manuscript and
promised to write a forward if I could get a bookcompany to publish it. He
said he was impressed and thought that my work was a fascinating hike in the
territory between philosophy and physics and that it was full of original
ideas! Unfortunately I don´t suppose many on this list is fluent in swedish,
but to give you an idea where I´m at I can show you the bibliography from
the book:

Bibliografi

Barrow, John D.: Universums födelse, Natur och Kultur, Stockholm 1995
Blackmore, Susan: The Meme Machine, Oxford University Press, New York 1999
Casti, John L.: Searching for certainty, Scribners, London 1992
Close, Frank: Lucifer´s Legacy, Oxford University Press, New York 2000
Davies, Paul: Superforce, Unwin Paperbacks, London 1985
Davies, P.C.W.; Brown J. (eds.): Superstrings - A Theory of Everything?,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1988
Dawkins, Richard: The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin Books, London 1988
Dawkins, Richard: Livets flod, Natur och Kultur, Stockholm 1996
Dennet, Daniel C.: Consciousness Explained, Penguin Books, London 1992
Dennet, Daniel C.: Darwin´s Dangerous Idea, Touchstone, New York 1996
Dennet, Daniel C.: Kinds of Minds - Toward an Understanding of
Consciousness, BasicBooks, New York 1996
Deutsch, David: The Fabric of Reality, Penguin Books, London 1997
Gell-Mann, Murray: Kvarken och Jaguaren, ICA-förlaget, Västerås 1994
Greene, Brian: The elegant universe, W.W. Norton & Company, New York 1999
Guttmann Y.M.: The concept of probability in statistical physics,  Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge 1999
Hawking, Stephen W.: Kosmos - En kort historik, Rabén Prisma, Stockholm 1992
Hawking, Stephen W.: Svarta hål och universums framtid, Rabén Prisma,
Stockholm 1994
Hoffmeyer, Jesper: Livstecken, Bonnier Alba, Stockholm 1997
Hutten, Ernest H.: The Ideas of Physics, Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1967
Jaynes, Julian: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the
Bicameral Mind, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1982
Livio, Mario: The Accelerating Universe, John Wiley & Sons, New York 2000
Monod, Jacques: Slump och nödvändighet, Aldus/Bonniers, Stockholm 1972
Smolin, Lee: Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London
2000
Wick, David: The Infamous Boundary, Springer-Verlag, New York 1995

Artiklar

David Deutsch: Comment on "'Many Minds' Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics
by Michael Lockwood", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 222-8
(1996)
David Deutsch: Proceedings of the Royal Society A455, 3129-3197 Quantum
Theory of Probability and Decisions (1999)
David Deutsch: Proceedings of the Royal Society A456, 1759-1774 Information
Flow in Entangled Quantum Systems (2000)
David Deutsch, Artur Ekert, Rossella Luppachini: Machines, Logic and Quantum
Physics, Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 3, 3 (September 2000)
David Deutsch: The Structure of the Multiverse, opublicerad artikel som blev
framsidesstoff  i  New Scientist (14 Juli 2001)
Horava & Witten: Eleven-dimensional supergravity on a manifold with
boundary, Nucl. Phys. B475 (1996)
Khoury, Ovrut, Steinhard, Turok: The Ekpyrotic Universe: Colliding Branes
and the Origin of the Hot Big Bang, arXiv:hep-th/0103239 (Mars 2001)
Tegmark & Wheeler: 100 Years of the Quantum, Scientific American (Februari
2001)
Max Tegmark: Is ``the theory of everything'' merely the ultimate ensemble
theory?, Annals of Physics 270, 1-51 (November 1998)
Michael Brooks: Enlightenment in the barrel of a gun, The Guardian (1997)
Anne Runehov: Mind, Brain, Quantum & Time: A Lockwoodian perspective,
Magisteruppsats vis Stockholms Universitet Filosofiska Institutionen (1999)
Steane & van Dam: Quantum entanglement looks like telepathy when three
physicist get together on a game show, Physics Today 35-39, (Februari 2000)

Webbpublikationer

E. T. Jaynes: Probability Theory: The Logic of Science,  fragment till ett
bokmanuskript från Juni 1994, PDF-format på webbadressen bayes.wustl.edu
(Augusti 2001)
Christoph Schiller: Motion Mountain - Hiking beyond space and time along the
concepts of modern physics, lärobok i fysik under utarbetande, PDF-format på
webbadressen dse.nl/motionmountain/welcome.html (Augusti 2001)

- Original Message -
From: "Wei Dai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 7:47 PM
Subject: JOINING posts


> I find that I often have trouble understanding posts